I was introduced to Claudio Monteverdi at school when we went with our music teacher, Alan Morgan, to Sadler’s Wells theatre to see his opera “L’Orfeo” in a ‘realisation’ by Raymond Leppard.  Leppard’s early baroque productions are no longer considered  comme il faut since the authentic music revival has revolutionised the way this repertoire is now performed. In fairness, however, Leppard did bring these hitherto unknown works to the public’s attention and, even with modern instruments, his productions were rather effective.

‘L’Orfeo’ was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Mantua carnival and is one of the earliest operas. (Jacopo Peri’s ‘Dafne’ is regarded as the first opera, written in 1598 for the Florentine Camerata.)

Monteverdi returned to opera towards the end of his life when he was asked by the Venetian republic to write for the new theatres there. Sadly at least seven of the composer’s operas have been lost and only ‘l’Incoronazione di Poppea’ and ‘Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria’ have survived.

On the other hand Monteverdi’s madrigals and most of his church music have survived. Why this situation? It’s clear that books of madrigals were purchased for home music-making and church music had its choirs requiring copies. The theatre, however, is more ephemeral and first performances may often be the only performances. Even in more recent times, operas have still been lost; for example, Sullivan’s ‘Thespis’.

It’s therefore lucky that three complete Monteverdi operas have survived for us to enjoy.  I attended a performance of one of them ‘Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria’ – only rediscovered by accident at the end of the nineteenth century – at Florence’s Alla Pergola theatre last week. This charming theatre dates from 1656 and is Italy’s oldest extant opera house. It is also the first theatre with superimposed boxes arranged in a horseshoe fashion – something which became de rigeur in subsequent opera houses.

Incidentally, the name ‘pergola’ relates to the framework on the top floor from which a vine, now looking ever more luscious, droops down.

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Many operatic premieres have taken place at the Teatro alla Pergola, most famously Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’ in 1847!

We think of Italian melodrama as being a succession of brilliant arias linked by recitatives. This is not quite the case with Monteverdi and early baroque opera. The ‘stile rappresentativo’ in which they are composed consists largely of an arioso style of singing half-way between recitativo and aria. This means that the text is paramount and that there are no examples of ‘da capo’ arias such as came later with Alessandro Scarlatti and his followers. There are few repetitions of words and the whole can be said to be’ through-composed’. In this respect Monteverdi is quite modern in outlook as operas since Wagner have tended to be composed with a similar aesthetic idea – they are in all senses, music dramas.

However, towards the end of his life Monteverdi did allow some arias to interrupt his ‘stile rappresentativo’ and also introduced more instrumental interludes to break up what might have become a tediously endless recitativo.

We are indeed in a period of great musical changes in the mid seventeenth century: late polyphony is turning into early baroque ‘stile rappresentativo’ and moving towards the fully-fledged high baroque operas of Handel and his ilk with their pyrotechnic arias and the rise of the opera diva.

‘Il Ritorno Di Ulisse in Patria’, written when Monteverdi was already 72 years old, was one of the first compositions intended for public theatres.  A few years earlier opera was an exclusive court entertainment but in 1637 the world’s first opera house was built in Venice and with it came the possibility for the public of seeing a show by just buying a ticket. Performances were no longer unique events but could be repeated – in short, theatre as we know it was born and in the following decade four more opera theatres were built in Venice.

I very much enjoyed the performance and its staging at the Teatro alla Pergola. Ottavio Dantone conducted the dazzling Accademia Bizantina with the most resonant cornette (an early baroque instrument and not to be confused with the modern brass cornet) I have heard.

The singers were equally excellent and included Charles Workman, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani and Delphine Galou.

The stage scenery mirrored the theatre itself with the semicircle of boxes occupied by what presumably were the aristocracy of the times dressed in flaming red costumes. The main cast was dressed unobtrusively in more modern clothes.

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I was so glad for the surtitles in both English and Italian for one couldn’t really miss a word in the unfolding drama of Ulysses’ return. Interestingly the libretto had no mention of Penelope’s weaving and unweaving of her cloth to keep the suitors at bay. They, unable to draw Ulysses’ bow-string, were eventually killed off by him when he handled the magic weapon. Penelope remained obstinate almost to the end, refusing to acknowledge Ulysses as her real husband. Even the old nurse’s recognition of a childhood scar (caused by a wild boar) on the returning hero’s back doesn’t convince her. It is when Ulysses accurately describes the pattern on their bed linen which Penelope has embroidered herself that she finally succumbs and realises that her beloved husband has returned from his long peregrinations around the Mediterranean.

Although my seat was ‘in the Gods’ I still obtained a very good view of the show as the Pergola is quite intimate in size and possesses heavenly acoustics!

The return of Ulysses to his homeland after years away has resonance in my own situation. Torn apart, not by any Trojan war but by a virus, we shall be spending our first wedding anniversary in forty-four years of marriage away from each other.

This is what I would have to do at present to reach the UK from Italy this summer (I’ve been double-vaxed).

Amber list passengers:

1. Be in receipt of a negative COVID-19 test, taken within 72 hours of arrival.

2. Book Covid tests for day 2 and 8 in the UK.

3. Complete a passenger locator form.

4. Self-quarantine in private accommodation for 10 full days after arrival (or full duration of stay if less than 10 days).

Last year we flew to Italy in the summer and back to the UK in the autumn and just required our standard passports and boarding passes in spite of the fact that both Italy and the UK were in the most desperate throes of the pandemic, far worse than now.

Shouldn’t these current precautions have been in place last year so that we could travel more easily (and safely) this year?

Anyway, there we are.

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Home-coming

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So near and yet so far in this strange year

like Ulysses will I see my birth’s isle

and sleep in the marriage bed with my dear

and sweetly dream forever and awhile?

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Could I remember that road high-sea sprung

towards the enchanted path that led home?

Could I live liberated and unstung,

enveloped in the waves’ perennial foam?

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I have left the lotus-eaters alone,

returned to be recognized by Argos

my faithful dog, by all the rest unknown

while the world hurls itself into chaos.

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So be it but just let me hold your hand

and walk together to that golden land!

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