Monteverdi, Ulysses Homecoming, English Touring Opera, New Theatre Royal, November 8th.I never thought I'd see Monteverdi opera in Portsmouth and so am very grateful to English Touring Opera and the New Theatre Royal for bringing it. They were rewarded with an appreciative audience if not a large one.
It is perhaps a slow burner with the real action, that is all the murdering, in the second half but one is lured in. I was on the front row, part of the continuo section of the orchestra really, and could see the strings on the theorbos vibrate and could have turned the pages of the music for the harpsichordist. Close to the singers, as well, it was a fine place to be with a view of the gamba and the cello, who was responsible for convincingly comic string sound effects.
Benedict Nelson is an impressive Ulysses and Carolyn Dobbin a not easily impressed Penelope but Adam Player as Irus (pictured in red), a Commedia del'Arte character representing gluttony, and one might think of a role like Autolycus in The Winter's Tale, does plenty of scene stealing in a relatively minor role.
One is aware that this is not Covent Garden but the production, including lighting and imaginative staging, was compelling in the end. Sub-titles are available even though it is sung in English and as such I might have preferred to have seen Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria but it is possible to become accustomed to the English.
It ends not unlike The Winter's Tale, now one comes to think of it and then, cleverly, I thought, like Joyce's Ulysses on a repeated 'yes'.
At two hours and twenty minutes, it didn't seem at all long because Monteverdi's music floats and meanders in its early baroque recitative way that could flow, one imagines, forever. Mannered, stylised and highly artificial it may be but it has a preservative in it that less restrained, or studied, music perhaps doesn't have.
Beautifully timed to finish just right to get the bus, be home half an hour after the curtain call and the review posted only just over an hour after it had ended, one can't complain about that.
It's Handel's Xerxes tomorrow night. Monteverdi was the priority because I have seen glorious Glyndebourne Handel previously but, if I'm not worn out, I could easily be back. One can sit almost where one wants. I hope that won't deter ETO from coming again.
