Ritorno ##VERIFIED##

Together with Monteverdi's other Venetian stage works, Il ritorno is classified as one of the first modern operas. Its music, while showing the influence of earlier works, also demonstrates Monteverdi's development as a composer of opera, through his use of fashionable forms such as arioso, duet and ensemble alongside the older-style recitative. By using a variety of musical styles, Monteverdi is able to express the feelings and emotions of a great range of characters, divine and human, through their music. Il ritorno has been described as an "ugly duckling", and conversely as the most tender and moving of Monteverdi's surviving operas, one which although it might disappoint initially, will on subsequent hearings reveal a vocal style of extraordinary eloquence.

ritorno

Before and after the publication of the score in 1922, scholars questioned the work's authenticity, and its attribution to Monteverdi continued to be in some doubt until the 1950s. The Italian musicologist Giacomo Benvenuti maintained, on the basis of a 1942 performance in Milan, that the work was simply not good enough to be by Monteverdi.[20] Apart from the stylistic differences between Il ritorno and Monteverdi's other surviving late opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea, the main issue which raised doubts was the series of discrepancies between the score and the libretto.[13] However, much of the uncertainty concerning the attribution was resolved through the discovery of contemporary documents, all confirming Monteverdi's role as the composer. These documents include a letter from the unknown librettist of Le nozze d'Enea in Lavinia, which discusses Monteverdi's setting of Il ritorno.[21] There is also Badoaro's preface to the Il ritorno libretto, addressed to the composer, which includes the wording "I can firmly state that my Ulysses is more indebted to you than ever was the real Ulysses to the ever-gracious Minerva".[22] A 1644 letter from Badoaro to Michelangelo Torcigliani contains the statement "Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria was embellished with the music of Claudio Monteverdi, a man of great fame and enduring name".[22] Finally, a 1640 booklet entitled Le Glorie della Musica indicates the Badoaro-Monteverdi pairing as the creators of the opera.[23] In the view of conductor and instrumentalist Sergio Vartolo, these findings establish Monteverdi as the principal composer "beyond a shadow of a doubt".[24] Although parts of the music may be by other hands, there is no doubt that the work is substantially Monteverdi's and remains close to his original conception.[25]

The opera entered a wider repertory in the early 1970s, with performances in Vienna (1971) and Glyndebourne (1972).[38] The Vienna performance used a new edition prepared by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, whose subsequent partnership with the French opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle led to the staging of the opera in many European cities. Ponnelle's 1978 presentation in Edinburgh was later described as "infamous";[41] at the time, critic Stanley Sadie praised the singers but criticised the production for its "frivolity and indeed coarseness".[42] In January 1974 Il ritorno received its United States première with a production mounted by the Opera Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, on the basis of the Harnoncourt edition.[43][44] Led by conductor Alexander Gibson, the cast included Frederica von Stade as L'humana Fragilità and Penelope, Claude Corbeil as Il Tempo and Antinoo, Joyce Castle as La Fortuna, Barbara Hocher as Amore and Melanto, Richard Stilwell as Ulisse, Donald Gramm as Nettuno, WIlliam Neill as Giove, Carmen Balthrop as Minerva, David Lloyd as Eumete, R. G. Webb as Iro, Howard Hensel as Eurimaco, Paul Sperry as Telemaco, Dennis Striny as Pisandro, and John Lankston as Anfinomo.[43]

According to Denis Arnold, although Monteverdi's late operas retain elements of the earlier Renaissance intermezzo and pastoral forms, they may be fairly considered as the first modern operas.[50] In the 1960s, however, David Johnson found it necessary to warn prospective Il ritorno listeners that if they expected to hear opera akin to Verdi, Puccini or Mozart, they would be disappointed: "You have to submit yourself to a much slower pace, to a much more chaste conception of melody, to a vocal style that is at first or second hearing merely like dry declamation and only on repeated hearings begins to assume an extraordinary eloquence."[51] A few years later, Jeremy Noble in a Gramophone review wrote that Il ritorno was the least known and least performed of Monteverdi's operas, "quite frankly, because its music is not so consistently full of character and imagination as that of Orfeo or Poppea."[52] Arnold called the work an "ugly duckling".[53] Later analysts have been more positive; to Mark Ringer Il ritorno is "the most tender and moving of Monteverdi's operas",[54] while in Ellen Rosand's view the composer's ability to portray real human beings through music finds its fullest realisation here, and in Poppea a few years later.[13]

The music of Il ritorno shows the unmistakable influence of the composer's earlier works. Penelope's lament, which opens Act I, is reminiscent both of Orfeo's Redentemi il mio ben and the lament from L'Arianna. The martial-sounding music which accompanies references to battles and the killing of the suitors, derives from Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, while for the song episodes in Il ritorno Monteverdi draws in part on the techniques which he developed in his 1632 vocal work Scherzi musicale.[55] In typical Monteverdi fashion the opera's characters are vividly portrayed in their music.[53] Penelope and Ulisse, with what is described by Ringer as "honest musical and verbal declamation", overcome the suitors whose styles are "exaggerated and ornamental".[54] Iro, perhaps "the first great comic character in opera",[56] opens his Act 3 monologue with a wail of distress that stretches across eight bars of music.[57] Penelope begins her lament with a reiteration of E flats that, according to Ringer, "suggest a sense of motionless and emotional stasis" that well represents her condition as the opera begins.[56] At the work's end, her travails over, she unites with Ulisse in a duet of life-affirming confidence which, Ringer suggests, no other composer bar Verdi could have achieved.[58]

The first recording of the opera was issued in 1964 by Vox, a version which incorporated substantial cuts.[20] The first complete recording was that of Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Wien in 1971.[64] Raymond Leppard's 1972 Glyndebourne version was recorded in a concert performance in the Royal Albert Hall; the following year the same Glyndebourne cast was recorded in a full stage performance. Leppard's third Glyndebourne version was issued in 1980, when the orchestration with strings and brass drew critical comment from Denis Arnold in his Gramophone review: "Too much of the music left with a simple basso continuo line in the original has been fully orchestrated with strings and brass, with the result that the expressive movement between recitative, arioso and aria is obscured." (For further details, see Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Raymond Leppard recording).) Much the same criticism, says Arnold, may be levelled at Harnoncourt's 1971 recording.[65]

"E ritorno da te" (literally I comeback to you) is a song by Italian recording artist Laura Pausini, released in September 2001 as the lead single from her first compilation album, The Best of Laura Pausini: E ritorno da te. The Spanish-language version of the song, titled "Volveré junto a ti" (I'll go back next to you), received an ASCAP Latin Music Award for Pop/Ballad Song in 2003,[1] while the Italian-language version received a nomination for International Song of the Year at the 2003 NRJ Music Awards.[2]

With Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, the Vienna State Opera completes its Monteverdi cycle opened in the past two seasons with L'incoronazione di Poppea and La favola di Orfeo. The relationship of the Ritorno to Vienna is a particularly close one, since the only surviving handwritten score by a copyist's hand was only identified in the 2nd half of the 19th century in the holdings of Leopold I's former bedchamber library; since the 2nd half of the 20th century, Monteverdi's authorship has been recognised beyond doubt. It could not be ascertained whether the copy of the score was expressly commissioned by the Habsburgs or acquired in Italy. Nor is there any indication that this score was used in connection with a performance.

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland) is an opera set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The story, taken from the second half of Homer's Odyssey, tells how constancy and virtue are ultimately rewarded, treachery and deception overcome. After his long journey home from the Trojan Wars Ulisse, king of Ithaca, finally returns to his kingdom where he finds that a trio of villainous suitors are importuning his faithful queen, Penelope.

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (SV 325, The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland) is an opera in a prologue and five acts (later revised to three), set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639-1640 carnival season. The story, taken from the second half of Homer's Odyssey, tells how constancy and virtue are ultimately rewarded, treachery and deception overcome. After his long journey home from the Trojan Wars Ulisse, king of Ithaca, finally returns to his kingdom where he finds that a trio of villainous suitors have seized the realm and are importuning his faithful queen, Penelope. With the assistance of the gods, his son Telemaco and a staunch friend Eumete, Ulisse vanquishes the suitors and recovers his kingdom.Il ritorno is the first of three full-length works which Monteverdi wrote for the burgeoning Venetian opera industry during the last five years of his life. After its initial successful run in Venice the opera was performed in Bologna before returning to Venice for the 1640-41 season. Thereafter, except for a possible performance at the Imperial court in Vienna late in the 17th century, there were no further revivals until the 20th century. The music became known in modern times through the 19th century discovery of an incomplete manuscript score which differs in many respects from the surviving versions of the libretto. After its publication in 1922 the score's authenticity was widely questioned, and performances of the opera remained rare during the next 30 years. By the 1950s the work was generally accepted as Monteverdi's, and after revivals in Vienna and Glyndebourne in the early 1970s it became increasingly popular. It has since been performed in opera houses all over the world, and has been recorded many times. 041b061a72