Uraufführung des Ulisse veröffentlicht) unterbringen: während die Freier im stummen Spiel beim Spannen von Odysseus’ Bogen scheitern (2. Akt, 12. Szene).
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1 Monteverdi Il ritorno d™Ulisse in patriaGardiner SDG730P 2018 Monteverdi Productions Ltd C 2018 Monteverdi Productions Ltd www.solideogloria.co.uk Edition by Bärenreiter Manufactured in Italy LC13772 Il ritorno d™Ulisse in patriaAct 1Act 2Act 3Ulisse Furio ZanasiPenelope Lucile Richardot Telemaco Krystian AdamMinerva/Fortuna Hana Bla˜íkováTempo/Nettuno/Antinoo Gianluca BurattoPisandro Micha˚ Czerniawski An˜nomo Gareth Treseder Eurimaco Zachary WilderMelanto Anna DennisGiove John Taylor Ward Giunone Francesca BoncompagniIro Robert BurtEumete Francisco Fernández-Rueda Umana Fragilità Carlo Vistoli Amore Silvia FrigatoEriclea Francesca BiliottiMonteverdi Choir English Baroque Soloists John Eliot Gardiner Claudio Monteverdi 1567-1643 84318307302374:46 71:28 38:56CD 1CD 2CD 3Soli Deo GloriaIl ritorno d™Ulisse in patria Gardiner SDG730
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21 Ulisse Furio Zanasi Penelope Lucile Richardot Telemaco Krystian Adam Minerva/Fortuna Hana Bla˜íková Tempo/Nettuno/Antinoo Gianluca Buratto Pisandro Micha˚ Czerniawski An˜nomo Gareth Treseder Eurimaco Zachary Wilder Melanto Anna Dennis Giove John Taylor Ward Giunone Francesca Boncompagni Iro Robert Burt Eumete Francisco Fernández-Rueda Humana Fragilità Carlo Vistoli Amore Silvia Frigato Ericlea Francesca Biliotti Monteverdi Choir English Baroque Soloists John Eliot Gardiner Il ritorno d™Ulisse in patriaClaudio Monteverdi 1567-1643
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323 CD1 74:46 Act 1 1 9:01 Prologue Mortal cosa son io: Humana Fragilità, Tempo, Fortuna, Amore 2 10:57 Scene I Di misera Regina: Penelope, Ericlea 3 10:54 Scene II Duri, e penosi: Melanto, Eurimaco 4 7:23 Scene IV-V Superbo è l™huom: Nettuno, Giove 5 3:13 Scene VI In questo basso mondo: Coro di Feaci, Nettuno 6 3:52 Scene VII Dormo ancora, o son desto?: Ulisse 7 12:23 Scene VIII Cara e lieta gioventù: Minerva, Ulisse, Coro di ninfe 8 1:57 Scene IX Tu d™Aretusa al fonte intanto vanne: Minerva, Ulisse 9 8:23 Scene X Donate un giorno, o dèi: Penelope, Melanto 10 1:50 Scene XI Come mal si salva un regio ammanto: Eumete 11 1:52 Scene XII Pastor d™armenti può: Iro, Eumete 12 3:00 Scene XIII Ulisse generoso: Eumete, Ulisse CD2 71:28 Act 2 1 0:30 Sinfonia 2 2:01 Scene I Lieto cammino: Telemaco, Minerva 3 5:43 Scene II O gran ˜glio d™Ulisse: Eumete, Ulisse, Telemaco 4 7:21 Scene III Che veggio, oimé, che miro?: Telemaco, Ulisse 5 2:32 Scene IV Eurimaco, la donna: Melanto, Eurimaco 6 7:01 Scene V Sono l™altre Regine: Antinoo, An˜nomo, Pisandro, Penelope 7 5:13 Scene VI All™allegrezze dunque: Pisandro, An˜nomo, Antinoo, Coro 8 1:12 Scene VII Apportator d™alte novelle vengo: Eumete, Penelope 9 6:31 Scene VIII Compagni, udiste?: Antinoo, An˜nomo, Pisandro, Eurimaco 10 3:05 Scene IX Perir non può chi tien per scorta il Cielo: Ulisse, Minerva 11 2:02 Scene X Io vidi, o pelegrin, de™ Proci amanti: Eumete, Ulisse 12 4:55 Scene XI Del mio lungo vïaggio i torti errori: Telemaco, Penelope 13 23:19 Scene XII-XIII Sempre, villano Eumete: Antinoo, Eumete, Iro, Ulisse, Telemaco, Penelope, Pisandro, An˜nomo CD3 38:56 Act 3 1 7:07 Scene I O dolor, o martir che l™alma attrista: Iro 2 2:11 Scene IV Forza d™occulto affetto: Eumete, Penelope 3 2:28 Scene V È saggio Eumete, è saggio: Telemaco, Penelope 4 3:28 Scene VI Fiamma è l™ira, o gran Dea: Minerva, Giunone 5 9:30 Scene VII Gran Giove: Giunone, Giove, Nettuno, Minerva, Coro in cielo, Coro marittimo 6 3:25 Scene VIII Ericlea, che vuoi far?: Ericlea 7 0:52 Scene IX Ogni vostra ragion sen porta ™l vento: Penelope, Telemaco, Eumete 8 9:54 Scene X O delle mie fatiche: Ulisse, Penelope, EricleaIl ritorno d™Ulisse in patriaClaudio Monteverdi 1567-1643 Volume
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423 CD1 74:46 Act 1 1 9:01 Prologue Mortal cosa son io: Humana Fragilità, Tempo, Fortuna, Amore 2 10:57 Scene I Di misera Regina: Penelope, Ericlea 3 10:54 Scene II Duri, e penosi: Melanto, Eurimaco 4 7:23 Scene IV-V Superbo è l™huom: Nettuno, Giove 5 3:13 Scene VI In questo basso mondo: Coro di Feaci, Nettuno 6 3:52 Scene VII Dormo ancora, o son desto?: Ulisse 7 12:23 Scene VIII Cara e lieta gioventù: Minerva, Ulisse, Coro di ninfe 8 1:57 Scene IX Tu d™Aretusa al fonte intanto vanne: Minerva, Ulisse 9 8:23 Scene X Donate un giorno, o dèi: Penelope, Melanto 10 1:50 Scene XI Come mal si salva un regio ammanto: Eumete 11 1:52 Scene XII Pastor d™armenti può: Iro, Eumete 12 3:00 Scene XIII Ulisse generoso: Eumete, Ulisse CD2 71:28 Act 2 1 0:30 Sinfonia 2 2:01 Scene I Lieto cammino: Telemaco, Minerva 3 5:43 Scene II O gran ˜glio d™Ulisse: Eumete, Ulisse, Telemaco 4 7:21 Scene III Che veggio, oimé, che miro?: Telemaco, Ulisse 5 2:32 Scene IV Eurimaco, la donna: Melanto, Eurimaco 6 7:01 Scene V Sono l™altre Regine: Antinoo, An˜nomo, Pisandro, Penelope 7 5:13 Scene VI All™allegrezze dunque: Pisandro, An˜nomo, Antinoo, Coro 8 1:12 Scene VII Apportator d™alte novelle vengo: Eumete, Penelope 9 6:31 Scene VIII Compagni, udiste?: Antinoo, An˜nomo, Pisandro, Eurimaco 10 3:05 Scene IX Perir non può chi tien per scorta il Cielo: Ulisse, Minerva 11 2:02 Scene X Io vidi, o pelegrin, de™ Proci amanti: Eumete, Ulisse 12 4:55 Scene XI Del mio lungo vïaggio i torti errori: Telemaco, Penelope 13 23:19 Scene XII-XIII Sempre, villano Eumete: Antinoo, Eumete, Iro, Ulisse, Telemaco, Penelope, Pisandro, An˜nomo CD3 38:56 Act 3 1 7:07 Scene I O dolor, o martir che l™alma attrista: Iro 2 2:11 Scene IV Forza d™occulto affetto: Eumete, Penelope 3 2:28 Scene V È saggio Eumete, è saggio: Telemaco, Penelope 4 3:28 Scene VI Fiamma è l™ira, o gran Dea: Minerva, Giunone 5 9:30 Scene VII Gran Giove: Giunone, Giove, Nettuno, Minerva, Coro in cielo, Coro marittimo 6 3:25 Scene VIII Ericlea, che vuoi far?: Ericlea 7 0:52 Scene IX Ogni vostra ragion sen porta ™l vento: Penelope, Telemaco, Eumete 8 9:54 Scene X O delle mie fatiche: Ulisse, Penelope, EricleaIl ritorno d™Ulisse in patriaClaudio Monteverdi 1567-1643 Volume Volume
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667This recording of Il ritorno d™Ulisse was made in Wroc ˜aw in September 2017 at the culmination of a seven-month exploration of Monteverdi™s three surviving operas. To mark the 450th anniversary of his birth we assembled a tight-knit band of singers and players for 33 performances in eight European countries, ending our cycle in Chicago and New York. No doubt Monteverdi would have been dumbfounded if he had been told that such would be the lasting fame of his operas 374 years after his death they would reach an estimated 70,000 listeners (and that is before counting any of the other celebratory performances given in different parts of the world in 2017!). But whereas only 50 years ago his music lay on the margins of audiences™ awareness, today staged versions of his operas are relatively frequent, though only L™incoronazione di Poppea has so far broken into the canon of mainstream operas. Ironic ally we can™t even be sure that in these three survivors we have the best of what he actually composed, so many works having been lost over the centuries. From what people said at the time the most grievous losses were his Arianna (1608) and Le nozze d™Enea con Lavinia (1641). Yet the ones which have survived are all dramatically gripping, humanly truthful and of dazzling musical beauty. What was it then that persuaded Monteverdi to come out of operatic retirement in his 74th year and, in a last great burst of creativity, to make such seminal contributions to the new genre? After all, he had recently taken holy orders, and as the busy maestro di cappella of St Mark™s Basilica there was not a lot of spare time to take on commercial The Return of Ulysses to his HomelandJohn Eliot Gardiner ventures as well. Was it the opportunity to preach his aesthetic creed to a wider, paying audience that he could not resist? Monteverdi believed that music achieves maximum impact when delivered on the stage, and that when de˜ned by time and space it is best equipped to fimove the human passionsfl, as he himself put it. This is where Giacomo Badoaro enters the story. The librettist of Ulisse was a leading member of the Venetian Accademia degli Incogniti who were said to be less than impressed by the quality of the operas produced since the theatres ˜rst opened in 1637. Badoaro took it upon himself to write a ˚attering letter to Monteverdi fito incite your Lordship™s virtues to make known to the people of Venice that where strong emotions are concerned, there is a vast difference between a painted image of the sun and the sun itselffl. Was that enough to tempt him, or was it the Homeric story of Ulysses™ homecoming to Ithaca, with its timeless themes of ˜delity, remorse and passion, that attracted him? Il ritorno d™Ulisse had been at the top of my wish list of works to conduct since I was 21. It epitomised for me all that was most exotic and alluring about Italian music of the early seventeenth century. Performing Ulisse for the ˜rst time in 2017 con˜rmed to me its stature as the worthy equal of the more celebrated L™Orfeo and Poppea, but I believe that all of us involved in the full Monteverdi trilogy found it to be the most compelling and moving of the three. At its première in 1640 Ulisse was a rousing success: it received at least ten performances in Venice to packed houses before being taken on tour to Bologna and then revived in Venice the following year. The key to its success both then and now lies in the ˚uidity of Monteverdi™s musical discourse, his skill in adjusting to the rapidly changing moods and in˚ections of Badoaro™s libretto and gliding almost imperceptibly from declamation to more lyrical song-like passages. At the same time he generates bold contrasts and a dynamic interaction between the characters Œ gods, heroes, as well as lowlife characters (some virtuous, others seedy). Within an overarching musical structure he creates gut-wrenching suspense Œ how long can the inconsolable Penelope hold out against the three suitors and the whispered arguments of her maid Melanto? Monteverdi makes us see that the carapace of denial that Penelope has formed in self-protection prevents her from accepting that the only person able to string Ulysses™ bow and to dispatch the suitors is the man standing right in front of her Œ her own returning husband. No autograph manuscript score of Ulisse survives. A single copy made a decade after the composer™s death was discovered in 1881 in Vienna and has been available in facsimile only since 2006. This score, which has missing instrumental lines and a few musical blanks, also departs in a number of signi˜cant respects from the nine extant manuscript librettos only one of which appears to have been prepared with direct reference to the score. From this we can trace the places where Monteverdi chose to cut and rearrange Badoaro™s text to make it more dramatically coherent. Baodaro later tactfully admitted that fihaving seen the opera performed ten times, I can positively af˜rm that my Ulysses is more obligated to your Lordship than the real Ulysses was to the ever-charming Minervafl.
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889With no ‚˜nal™ or ‚authentic™ version of Ulisse to rely on, the ˜rst priority for any performer is to reconcile these surviving sources and to correct the obvious discrepancies and copyist™s errors*. Monteverdi™s last two operas did not simply crystallise into unchanging ‚works™ with a ˜xed text, but as living organisms they were constantly subject to layers of additions, cuts, transpositions, and revisions. Each attempt to revive them in our day will perforce come up with a different solution. When it came to plugging those gaps where no music survives in the Vienna score it seemed preferable to draw on Monteverdi™s own music, albeit from an earlier period, rather than to scan for other contemporary music by his pupils or peers. For despite the marked differences of form and idiom and the 33 years that separate Ulisse from his ˜rst opera L™Orfeo , there are clear ˜ngerprints of Monteverdi™s consistent approach to word- setting in both works Œ evidence of his commitment to the ideals of what he called ‚imitation™ and ‚representation™. So for the chorus of Naiads in Act 1 scene VI ,as they rescue Ulysses™ belongings and treasures from the shore, we found a neat ˜t with his three-part balletto ‚De la bellezza le dovute lodi™ from his Scherzi musicali (1607). For the ballo greco in Act 2 scene VI where the suitors intensify their wooing of Penelope we have gone back to three sections of Monteverdi™s choral ballet Tirsi e Clori of 1615 (probably his ˜rst semi-theatrical work to be composed in Venice and published four years later in his Seventh Book of Madrigals). Finally, we found room for brief, anguished entrate from his Ballo delle ingrate (1608, but published only two years before the Ulisse premi ère) for the dumbshow of the suitors™ failed attempts to string Ulysses™ bow in Act 2 scene XII, and a capricious fragment to announce Ericlea™s entry in Act 3 scene VIII.Decisions regarding all the remaining editorial and performance practice issues ˚owed from the initial premise Œ to perform the trilogy, not in proscenium theatres equipped with lavish stage machinery, decor and props, but in concert halls (the exception being the Teatro La Fenice in Venice where we performed two complete cycles on a thrust forestage). Our target was to reach beyond the demographic of opera-going a˜cionados and to connect with a wider and younger audience for Monteverdi. By presenting his trilogy in vivid but pared-down stagings we aimed to communicate the radical and explosive force of these great music dramas, the emotional depths they plumb, and their strikingly modern feel, without losing the intrinsic intimacy of form and dialectic. We know (this time from another of his librettists, Michelangelo Torcigliani) that Monteverdi was always on the look out for libretti with shifting moods Œ fibecause they offer him the opportunity of showing the marvels of his art with a full range of pathos, adapting his notes to the words and the passions in such a way that the singer laughs, cries, becomes enraged, compassionate, and does everything else they ask of him; meanwhile the listener is drawn by the same impetus into experiencing the variety and force of those same passionsfl. A large portion of our rehearsals was devoted to exploring Monteverdi™s brilliant fusion of music and words and to making sure that both singers and instrumentalists fully engaged with the text. Following the precepts of his contemporary Marco da Gagliano, himself a composer of operas, we were seeking fito chisel out the syllables so as to make the words well understoodfl through a delivery not simply accurate in linguistic pronunciation and in˚ection, but given with a sensual relish. Our language coach, Matteo Dalle Fratte, went to great lengths to point out to the cast the mesmerising beauty of sung Italian when consonants are projected percussively and expressively in counterpoint to the smooth legato ˚ow of the vowels. This applies not just to double consonants but to comma punctuation, agogic accents, word repetitions and exclamations. Only once the technique has been fully mastered by the singer-actors (as opposed to the dreaded ‚singerese™ Œ the disease of so many opera singers), can this produce a frisson in the way words will be received by the listener; but it also enhances the expressive vocabulary of Monteverdi™s word-setting and his cunning way of imitating the accents of speech. The slight anticipation of the incoming consonant and a minuscule delay before the vowel mirrors the thought processes of the narration. To me this is analogous to the ways Monteverdi uses both rhythm and counterpoint. In his operas Monteverdi habitually uses an alternation of duple and triple metre against an implied tactus (a regular unvarying beat). That is where the rhythmic frisson originates. Added to this is the harmonic tension he sets up between his vocal lines and the supporting basso continuo. The latter normally proceeds with a regular harmonic rhythm or pulse, but burgeons into expressive dissonance s at key moments when he contrives that these two complementary lines should collide and clash. Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered that the late stage director Sir Peter Hall pointed to something strikingly similar in the technique used by Shakespeare in his great tragedies and late plays which were written at exactly the same time as Monteverdi was setting out as a composer of operas. Hall refers to fia freedom in verse which is perfectly miraculous. [In The Winter™s Tale ] Leontes™ twisted passion and paranoia is accurately expressed by his clotted, irregular rhythms and mis-accents. But these irregularities only make emotional sense and can only affect an audience if the actor knows the underlying regularity beneath them. He must revel in the cross-rhythms, ride the irregularities and use the bumps in the smoothness for emotional purposes.fl So far so uncannily parallel. Hall compared playing the mature verse of Shakespeare to the challenges facing a great jazz player Œ though this applies equally well, I feel, to a singer or continuo player interpreting Monteverdi™s opera scores: fithe beat must be kept, the rhythm always sensed. But it is the tension between that regularity and the irregularity of the speech [or in Monteverdi™s case, the vocal line set against the basso continuo] which expresses the emotional turmoil. The nearer the verse gets to collapsing, the more tortured and emotional the expression. But it must never collapse, any more than the jazz musician can ever miss the beat or be ‚out™. The actor must risk rhythmical disintegration, but never surrender to it. What the audience receives
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989With no ‚˜nal™ or ‚authentic™ version of Ulisse to rely on, the ˜rst priority for any performer is to reconcile these surviving sources and to correct the obvious discrepancies and copyist™s errors*. Monteverdi™s last two operas did not simply crystallise into unchanging ‚works™ with a ˜xed text, but as living organisms they were constantly subject to layers of additions, cuts, transpositions, and revisions. Each attempt to revive them in our day will perforce come up with a different solution. When it came to plugging those gaps where no music survives in the Vienna score it seemed preferable to draw on Monteverdi™s own music, albeit from an earlier period, rather than to scan for other contemporary music by his pupils or peers. For despite the marked differences of form and idiom and the 33 years that separate Ulisse from his ˜rst opera L™Orfeo , there are clear ˜ngerprints of Monteverdi™s consistent approach to word- setting in both works Œ evidence of his commitment to the ideals of what he called ‚imitation™ and ‚representation™. So for the chorus of Naiads in Act 1 scene VI ,as they rescue Ulysses™ belongings and treasures from the shore, we found a neat ˜t with his three-part balletto ‚De la bellezza le dovute lodi™ from his Scherzi musicali (1607). For the ballo greco in Act 2 scene VI where the suitors intensify their wooing of Penelope we have gone back to three sections of Monteverdi™s choral ballet Tirsi e Clori of 1615 (probably his ˜rst semi-theatrical work to be composed in Venice and published four years later in his Seventh Book of Madrigals). Finally, we found room for brief, anguished entrate from his Ballo delle ingrate (1608, but published only two years before the Ulisse premi ère) for the dumbshow of the suitors™ failed attempts to string Ulysses™ bow in Act 2 scene XII, and a capricious fragment to announce Ericlea™s entry in Act 3 scene VIII.Decisions regarding all the remaining editorial and performance practice issues ˚owed from the initial premise Œ to perform the trilogy, not in proscenium theatres equipped with lavish stage machinery, decor and props, but in concert halls (the exception being the Teatro La Fenice in Venice where we performed two complete cycles on a thrust forestage). Our target was to reach beyond the demographic of opera-going a˜cionados and to connect with a wider and younger audience for Monteverdi. By presenting his trilogy in vivid but pared-down stagings we aimed to communicate the radical and explosive force of these great music dramas, the emotional depths they plumb, and their strikingly modern feel, without losing the intrinsic intimacy of form and dialectic. We know (this time from another of his librettists, Michelangelo Torcigliani) that Monteverdi was always on the look out for libretti with shifting moods Œ fibecause they offer him the opportunity of showing the marvels of his art with a full range of pathos, adapting his notes to the words and the passions in such a way that the singer laughs, cries, becomes enraged, compassionate, and does everything else they ask of him; meanwhile the listener is drawn by the same impetus into experiencing the variety and force of those same passionsfl. A large portion of our rehearsals was devoted to exploring Monteverdi™s brilliant fusion of music and words and to making sure that both singers and instrumentalists fully engaged with the text. Following the precepts of his contemporary Marco da Gagliano, himself a composer of operas, we were seeking fito chisel out the syllables so as to make the words well understoodfl through a delivery not simply accurate in linguistic pronunciation and in˚ection, but given with a sensual relish. Our language coach, Matteo Dalle Fratte, went to great lengths to point out to the cast the mesmerising beauty of sung Italian when consonants are projected percussively and expressively in counterpoint to the smooth legato ˚ow of the vowels. This applies not just to double consonants but to comma punctuation, agogic accents, word repetitions and exclamations. Only once the technique has been fully mastered by the singer-actors (as opposed to the dreaded ‚singerese™ Œ the disease of so many opera singers), can this produce a frisson in the way words will be received by the listener; but it also enhances the expressive vocabulary of Monteverdi™s word-setting and his cunning way of imitating the accents of speech. The slight anticipation of the incoming consonant and a minuscule delay before the vowel mirrors the thought processes of the narration. To me this is analogous to the ways Monteverdi uses both rhythm and counterpoint. In his operas Monteverdi habitually uses an alternation of duple and triple metre against an implied tactus (a regular unvarying beat). That is where the rhythmic frisson originates. Added to this is the harmonic tension he sets up between his vocal lines and the supporting basso continuo. The latter normally proceeds with a regular harmonic rhythm or pulse, but burgeons into expressive dissonance s at key moments when he contrives that these two complementary lines should collide and clash. Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered that the late stage director Sir Peter Hall pointed to something strikingly similar in the technique used by Shakespeare in his great tragedies and late plays which were written at exactly the same time as Monteverdi was setting out as a composer of operas. Hall refers to fia freedom in verse which is perfectly miraculous. [In The Winter™s Tale ] Leontes™ twisted passion and paranoia is accurately expressed by his clotted, irregular rhythms and mis-accents. But these irregularities only make emotional sense and can only affect an audience if the actor knows the underlying regularity beneath them. He must revel in the cross-rhythms, ride the irregularities and use the bumps in the smoothness for emotional purposes.fl So far so uncannily parallel. Hall compared playing the mature verse of Shakespeare to the challenges facing a great jazz player Œ though this applies equally well, I feel, to a singer or continuo player interpreting Monteverdi™s opera scores: fithe beat must be kept, the rhythm always sensed. But it is the tension between that regularity and the irregularity of the speech [or in Monteverdi™s case, the vocal line set against the basso continuo] which expresses the emotional turmoil. The nearer the verse gets to collapsing, the more tortured and emotional the expression. But it must never collapse, any more than the jazz musician can ever miss the beat or be ‚out™. The actor must risk rhythmical disintegration, but never surrender to it. What the audience receives
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101011is therefore unexpected, dangerous, and always unpredictablefl [ Exposed by the Mask]. John Berger expresses something similar: fiThe way singers play with or defy the linearity of time has something in common with what acrobats and jugglers do with the force of gravity The tempo, the beat, the loops, the repetitions of a song construct a shelter from the ˜ow of linear time: a shelter in which future, present and past can console, provoke, ironise and inspire one anotherfl [Confabulations].In Ulisse we can hear how Monteverdi™s skilful transitions from conversational ‚sung speech™ (recitative) to pure song (aria) and a combination of the two (arioso) serve to intensify the expression of the characters™ temperament and states of mind. In practice each performer needs to be constantly aware of the direction of the discourse Œ of Monteverdi™s crucial distinction between narration (diegesis) and representation (mimesis) Œ and how this impacts on the forward motion of the action as well as the emotional content and ‚tone™ of each monologue or exchange. This distinction was something new in the evolution of music-theatre at the time, and it developed in parallel with the techniques Shakespeare was then exploring in his late plays. When Hamlet says in Act 2 scene II fiNow I am alone. Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!fl Œ quite obviously he is not alone, but in fact addressing a noisy audience at The Globe theatre. The critical thing is how to create the illusion of intimacy: how to reveal raw and highly personal emotion with overwhelming intensity, but without anyone having to force their voices. In our performances rather than consign the instrumentalists to a pit we decided to follow Marco da Gagliano™s injunction: fiBe advised that the instruments which must accompany the solo voices should be situated in a position to look the actors in the face, so that hearing each other better they can proceed togetherfl. This had two additional advantages: it allowed the audience to have ‚the engine room™ of the drama in full view, with the instrumentalists deployed in two symmetrical half-moons, and to witness the interaction of players and singers at every twist and turn. And since we were playing in medium-to-large concert halls and not constrained by the economically austere and spatially restricted instrumentarium of the Venetian commercial theatres of the 1640s, we opted to augment the continuo group to include a lirone, a harp and pairs of recorders and cornetti , without compromising the intimacy of dialogue or the projection of the words. Similarly we underpinned with vigorous string articulation the passages where Monteverdi resorts to a warlike trope in his concitato (agitated) style to convey contempt, ire or bellicosity. This is analogous to his practice in his Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (1638) and to what he prescribes for Ulisse™s wrestling match with Iro and the sinfonia da guerra which concludes Act 2. Elsewhere from time to time we introduced improvised lines to emphasise the distinction between the gods and the humans, and between the benign pastoral realm and the suffocating world of Penelope™s court.** This juxtaposition of two opposed worlds is strikingly similar to those one ˚nds in Shakespeare™s As You Like It , where the forest stands for freedom , natural goodness and life in harmony with Nature, while the court, peopled by sycophants and pretenders, symbolises all that is tainted and treacherous. Might we therefore consider Monteverdi™s Ulisse to be a kind of Shakespearean anti-comedy? After all, it culminates in a return to the marriage bed following a tale of unravelling and mistaken identity before the natural order is ˚nally restored. No other plot of the period has this kind of trajectory apart from Shakespearean tragicomedy. But the parallels with the Bard extend well beyond this. In his portrayal of Ulysses, and still more of Penelope, Monteverdi shows his deep concern, as Shakespeare does in Hamlet and King Lear, for an interior world Œ both playwright and composer exploring complex thoughts and feelings that extend beyond words and actions. Il ritorno d™Ulisse , Monteverdi™s antepenultimate opera, marks another step in a life spent transforming music Œ from an act of skilled arti˚ce re˜ecting the harmony of the spheres into a dramatised form of expression rooted in human truths and emotions. This amounted to a fundamental switch Œ from a musical language that spoke primarily in metaphysical af˚rmatives to one capable of mirroring a world full of squalor, depravity but also of redemptive love. It happens to coincide exactly with one of those turbulent periods in the history of painting, when artists such as Velázquez, Rembrandt, or Artemesia Gentileschi, all at the height of their powers, were unleashing their energy and taking equivalent liberties with hallowed conventions. Is there any other opera that culminates in a duet in which the two protagonists sing together for the very ˚rst time? They have not spoken in twenty years. He returns after being reported missing. She has remained steadfast and unbending, breaking into song only when she has irrefutable proof that he is her man. But they now share the language of love with touching, life-af˚rming unanimity. *I am grateful to James Halliday and Paolo Zanzu for their help in this regard, **I am grateful to the following colleagues for their valuable improvised contributions Œ Paolo Zanzu, Antonio Greco, Kati Debretzeni, Rachel Beckett, Jamie Savan and James Halliday.
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111011is therefore unexpected, dangerous, and always unpredictablefl [ Exposed by the Mask]. John Berger expresses something similar: fiThe way singers play with or defy the linearity of time has something in common with what acrobats and jugglers do with the force of gravity The tempo, the beat, the loops, the repetitions of a song construct a shelter from the ˜ow of linear time: a shelter in which future, present and past can console, provoke, ironise and inspire one anotherfl [Confabulations].In Ulisse we can hear how Monteverdi™s skilful transitions from conversational ‚sung speech™ (recitative) to pure song (aria) and a combination of the two (arioso) serve to intensify the expression of the characters™ temperament and states of mind. In practice each performer needs to be constantly aware of the direction of the discourse Œ of Monteverdi™s crucial distinction between narration (diegesis) and representation (mimesis) Œ and how this impacts on the forward motion of the action as well as the emotional content and ‚tone™ of each monologue or exchange. This distinction was something new in the evolution of music-theatre at the time, and it developed in parallel with the techniques Shakespeare was then exploring in his late plays. When Hamlet says in Act 2 scene II fiNow I am alone. Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!fl Œ quite obviously he is not alone, but in fact addressing a noisy audience at The Globe theatre. The critical thing is how to create the illusion of intimacy: how to reveal raw and highly personal emotion with overwhelming intensity, but without anyone having to force their voices. In our performances rather than consign the instrumentalists to a pit we decided to follow Marco da Gagliano™s injunction: fiBe advised that the instruments which must accompany the solo voices should be situated in a position to look the actors in the face, so that hearing each other better they can proceed togetherfl. This had two additional advantages: it allowed the audience to have ‚the engine room™ of the drama in full view, with the instrumentalists deployed in two symmetrical half-moons, and to witness the interaction of players and singers at every twist and turn. And since we were playing in medium-to-large concert halls and not constrained by the economically austere and spatially restricted instrumentarium of the Venetian commercial theatres of the 1640s, we opted to augment the continuo group to include a lirone, a harp and pairs of recorders and cornetti , without compromising the intimacy of dialogue or the projection of the words. Similarly we underpinned with vigorous string articulation the passages where Monteverdi resorts to a warlike trope in his concitato (agitated) style to convey contempt, ire or bellicosity. This is analogous to his practice in his Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (1638) and to what he prescribes for Ulisse™s wrestling match with Iro and the sinfonia da guerra which concludes Act 2. Elsewhere from time to time we introduced improvised lines to emphasise the distinction between the gods and the humans, and between the benign pastoral realm and the suffocating world of Penelope™s court.** This juxtaposition of two opposed worlds is strikingly similar to those one ˚nds in Shakespeare™s As You Like It , where the forest stands for freedom , natural goodness and life in harmony with Nature, while the court, peopled by sycophants and pretenders, symbolises all that is tainted and treacherous. Might we therefore consider Monteverdi™s Ulisse to be a kind of Shakespearean anti-comedy? After all, it culminates in a return to the marriage bed following a tale of unravelling and mistaken identity before the natural order is ˚nally restored. No other plot of the period has this kind of trajectory apart from Shakespearean tragicomedy. But the parallels with the Bard extend well beyond this. In his portrayal of Ulysses, and still more of Penelope, Monteverdi shows his deep concern, as Shakespeare does in Hamlet and King Lear, for an interior world Œ both playwright and composer exploring complex thoughts and feelings that extend beyond words and actions. Il ritorno d™Ulisse , Monteverdi™s antepenultimate opera, marks another step in a life spent transforming music Œ from an act of skilled arti˚ce re˜ecting the harmony of the spheres into a dramatised form of expression rooted in human truths and emotions. This amounted to a fundamental switch Œ from a musical language that spoke primarily in metaphysical af˚rmatives to one capable of mirroring a world full of squalor, depravity but also of redemptive love. It happens to coincide exactly with one of those turbulent periods in the history of painting, when artists such as Velázquez, Rembrandt, or Artemesia Gentileschi, all at the height of their powers, were unleashing their energy and taking equivalent liberties with hallowed conventions. Is there any other opera that culminates in a duet in which the two protagonists sing together for the very ˚rst time? They have not spoken in twenty years. He returns after being reported missing. She has remained steadfast and unbending, breaking into song only when she has irrefutable proof that he is her man. But they now share the language of love with touching, life-af˚rming unanimity. *I am grateful to James Halliday and Paolo Zanzu for their help in this regard, **I am grateful to the following colleagues for their valuable improvised contributions Œ Paolo Zanzu, Antonio Greco, Kati Debretzeni, Rachel Beckett, Jamie Savan and James Halliday.
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