IL RITORNO D'ULISSE

About the show

Following their acclaimed production of Orfeo in 2022, we welcome back the same creative team to perform the second of Monteverdi’s opera trilogy. John Caird will direct and Laurence Cummings will conduct The English Concert on the stage, with a stellar cast lead by Cecelia Hall and Ed Lyon. In the last five fruitful years of his life, Monteverdi wrote this opera for the carnival season of 1640, a time for music, dance and masquerading. His musical style, so astonishingly bold and innovative when he wrote Orfeo more than thirty years earlier, has developed yet further, with arias and duets that give full life and humanity to his characters. The dramatic tale of Ulysses (Odysseus) returning to Ithaca after the Trojan War is expressed through a rich blend of myth, emotion, and human struggle. At its centre is Penelope’s enduring faithfulness, with themes of loyalty, identity, and divine intervention described through Monteverdi’s intimate and deeply expressive score, marking a key transition between Renaissance and Baroque opera styles.