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Ulysses strings his bow, to the distress of the suitors. Pictures: Richard Hubert Smith Ulysses’ Homecoming
Malvern Theatres
***** OF all
Monteverdi’s stage works, we have to live with the fact that not only is
much of the music lost, but he also composed relatively few complete
operas anyway. Indeed the span of this
father of opera leaps almost at one tum from
L’Orfeo, the
work for the Mantua ducal palace with which the 39 year old composer
(along with rivals like Peri and Caccini) virtually launched the genre
in February 1607, to his dramatic masterpiece
The Marriage of Poppea,
produced at the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo, Venice in 1643, the very
year Monteverdi died. But there were
redeeming features. The Battle of
Tancredi and Clorinda, still survives
from midway between those two works. And there is one other stagework
that reveals to the full the composer’s astonishing talents. Poppea
is arguably equally significant for its superb
librettist, Giovanni Francesco Busenello, who brings to it not only a
more than sufficient command of the classics (Tacitus and others), but
the particular fusion of passion and pathos, personal tragedy and
hilarious comedy, which raise Monteverdi’s last work to the level of
Shakespeare. And it is a delight to
be reminded that Giacomo Badoaro,
some 35 years younger than the composer, has much of this same gift. The
pacing of the libretto, the way he copes with the long delayed
recognition of Ulysses, and the interchanges he brings in with the
disguised Minerva (Athene), the swineherd Eumaeus (a favourite scene
from Homer’s Odyssey)
and with Penelope, who resolutely refuses to recognise him.
James Conway’s
production of Ulysses’ Homecoming
(the terrific rhyming translation,
which has lasted brilliantly, is by Anne Ridler), for his company
English Touring Opera (they are also touring Cavalli’s
La Calisto
and Handel’s Xerxes)
somehow managed to capture all the ingredients that make this opera such
an undoubted masterpiece. Crucial to the way he presents it is the design
by Takis: together they have had the inspiration to conjure up the
atmosphere mainly by a single visual effect: a series of wooden struts
at stage right which suggest, first, the struts of a ship: Odysseus’s
vessel bringing him home after ten years’ wandering; and secondly, an
array of massive bows waiting to be strung (and when the suitors
struggle to draw them, the cord is an ominous scarlet red: death is in
the air). Conway begins by using a set of six doors, three above three, arrayed like a kind of elaborate cupboard at stage left. As with Poppea, Monteverdi starts with a morality tale told by three divine characters: there, it is Love, Fortune and Virtue; here, Virtue is replaced by Human Frailty, the last of whom, sung by alto Clint van der Linde, is a pathetic and abandoned creature, a point artfully made by effectively imprisoning him within the boat/bows, seemingly bereft of all hope, while Love (the splendid soprano Martha Jones, especially characterful when doubling the role of Penelope’s flighty and in reality disloyal maid Melanto) and Fortune (Andrew Slater, a marvellously reliable stalwart of ETO) appear above, smug and self-satisfied. Ten years on from Troy, Penelope is still besieged by a cluster of would-be suitors, represented here by three main protagonists: Antinous, the most cynical and demanding of those in Homer’s original, and sung again by Slater; Eurymachus (the forceful Robert Anthony Gardiner), a suitably sly character who finds time to dally with the maid; and Pisander, another alto role for van der Linde. Their challenges to
Penelope to lay aside her determination to remain loyal to Ulysses
produced several effectively staged scenes, though even more
memorable
were the bizarre antics of the strange character Irus (Adam Player),
their ‘minion’ and here a kind of laughable eunuch, who waddles around
the stage thoroughly entertainingly and gradually earns our sympathy, or
partially so. There is a hint of Poppea
in this hapless, much-mocked Irus Badoaro has the sense to provide a substantial role for Eumaeus, the loyal retainer to whom Ulysses in Homer goes first, and who aids him in his stage-by-stage return to the royal palace. Reunited at last - Penelope (Carolyn Dobbin) and Ulysses (Benedict Nelson) So humble and utterly dependable is this
swineherd that one almost expects Ulysses to return to the palace
clinging under a large pig or sow, in a replay of the escape from
Polyphemus. But instead he dresses himself up in the disguise
of a wandering vagabond, looking here like a dead ringer for Alexander
Selkirk/Robinson Crusoe. The fact that he has to wander the stage in
these ignoble rags lead to the suitors’ ridicule, but Penelope stands up
for him, following Eumaeus’ observation ‘Beggars are favoured by the
mighty in heaven as Jove’s beloved.’ In the palace, crouched by the
bows, and looking insignificant were it not for the splendid dramatic
irony, he await his moment. Conway’s casting was a notable success. Not only
with the doublings or even treblings: hence Slater plays a third role,
as Neptune, thoroughly resentful and grumpy and each time to commanding
effect; and van der Linde has another task, that of depicting Ericlea,
the old nurse, arguably a role Badoaro’s libretto fails to use to best
effect: along the lines of Poppea’s nurse Arnalta, she deserves a more
weighty role, more akin to Eumaeus, and a couple of proper solos: even
her recognition of Ulysses seemed a little sub-fusc here.
Telemachus (Nick
Pritchard) is magicked back from Sparta by Minerva, and encountering his
father at the swineherd’s hut, is brought into the plot. Again, Badoaro
gives the son not a huge amount to do apart from act as his father’s
stooge, and so it was here. Martha Jones’s finely sung Melanto had that
mixture of shrewdness and cheek that go with, for instance,
Poppea’s
maid (Damigella). But the most
desirable of all was Katie Bray, who first as the chirpy (supposed)
young lad and then transformed into the goddess Minerva has the most
elaborate coloratura of them all, which she delivered gorgeously, and,
staying with Ulysses to the end, proves that having just one deity on
your side is sufficient to ensure things turn out well. But the vocals were pleasing throughout – with
Carolyn Dobbin catching the poignancy and endless patience of Penelope –
to whom the libretto does give ample stretches of soliloquy – and
Benedict Nelson absolutely first class as Ulysses. Rags he may have
donned, but there was nothing ragged about the voice: beautifully
expressive and with a real individual quality that shone through every
utterance. Meanwhile conductor Jonathan Peter Kenny made of Monteverdi’s
score the wonderfully electrifying experience that it should be, rich in
every detail, bouncing with life and positively dancing from scene to
scene: his harpist, two archlutes and keyboard worked wonders with the
vital and energised recitative, of which there is a huge amount, and the
remaining strings brought an enviable perfection, of the kind one has
long associated with ETO’s Early Music performances. Roderic Dunnett 20-10-16 Tour dates: Fri 28 Oct Harrogate Theatre; Wed 2 Nov Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden; Tues 8 Nov New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth; Fri 11 Nov Snape Maltings Concert Hall; Tues 15 Nov Gala Theatre, Durham; Fri 18 Nov Buxton Opera House; Thu 24 Nov Northcott Theatre, Exeter
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