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by Claudio Monteverdi, directed by Marshall Pynkoski

Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto

April 19, 21, 22, 24, 27 & 28, 2018

Penelope and Ulisse: “Del piacer, del goder venuto è 'l di.”

Opera Atelier’s revival of The Return of Ulysses (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) is a magnificent success.  The revival not only boasts an even stronger cast than did OA’s first staging of the opera in 2007, but director Marshall Pynkoski’s conception of the work seems to have evolved so that in the course of watching Monteverdi’s 1640 masterpiece, we seem to witness the birth of modern psychological opera from its origins in the representation of allegory and myth.

The opera in its present form consists of a Prologue and three acts.  In the allegorical Prologue, L’umana Fragilità (“human frailty” sung by Isaiah Bell) laments his weakness, “Mortal cosa son io, fattura umana” (“A mortal thing am I, a human form”).  The personifications of Time (Douglas Williams), Fortune (Carla Huhtanen) and Love (Meghan Lindsay) mock mankind who is completely subject to their whims.  Powerful as this Prologue is, the main action of the opera demonstrates that this image of human weakness and lack of freedom is not entirely true.

The opera proper is based on Books 13-24 of Homer’s Odyssey.  Ulysses has been absent from his kingdom of Ithaca for 20 years.  Ten of those years were devoted to fighting in the Trojan War.  A further ten were devoted to trying to find his way back home after being blown off course by the sea god Neptune, whose enmity toward Ulysses was kindled when Ulysses blinded his son Polyphemus.  Acts 1 and 2 are notable for the direct intervention of the gods in the actions of the humans. 

During Ulysses’s absence his wife Penelope (Mireille Lebel) has been besieged by more than 100 suitors who live riotously in her palace and, as time goes by, increasingly insist that she choose one of them for a husband since they believe Ulysses must be dead.  Because the suitors have threatened to kill Penelope’s son Telemachus (Christopher Enns), who would inherit the kingdom should Penelope not remarry, he has fled to Sparta. 

Meanwhile, Ulysses has found passage to Ithaca on a ship manned by Phaeacians.  Both Jove (Kevin Skelton) and Neptune (Stephen Hegedus) punish the Phaeacians by turning them and their ship to stone, but the gods do allow Ulysses to land alive on shore.  There Ulysses meets his patron goddess Minerva (Meghan Lindsay), disguised as a shepherd, who tells Ulysses that Penelope has been true to him despite unbearable pressure from the suitors.  Disguised as a beggar to gain entry to his own palace Ulysses seeks out his loyal servant Eumaeus (Aaron Sheehan) to tell the others that Ulysses will soon return.  There Ulysses sees for himself Penelope’s plight as three suitors in particular – Antinous (Douglas Williams), Peisander (Michael Taylor), Amphinomus (Kevin Skelton) – try to woo her with gifts.        

At the same time Minerva has magically transported Telemachus from Sparta back to Ithaca to help his father retake the throne.  She also forces Penelope to issue a challenge to the suitors that she will marry whoever can string Ulysses’ bow.  When each of the three main suitors comically fail, Ulysses and Telemachus massacre the entire crew.

Yet, even after this Penelope is not convinced that the beggar is really Ulysses as he claims.  Here in Act 3, at least as Pynkoski has edited the opera, no gods appear.  And the way that Penelope is finally convinced to believe Ulysses happens entirely through human interaction.  This makes the third act appear dramatically the most modern and most psychologically penetrating of the three.  Thus, by omitting two scenes with the gods in Act 3, Pynkoski has allowed the opera to pass from allegory to myth to human psychology as the prime interest.  As Pynkoski’s Act 3 shows, contrary to the allegorical Prologue, human interaction alone can free humankind from the chains of Time and Fortune if not Love.

Opera Atelier has assembled a powerful cast that in every way outshines that of 2007.  All had mastered Monteverdi’s arioso style and even his characteristic trillo of several rapid repetitions of the same note.  None used the trillo simply as ornamentation.  Some turned it into laughter, some into weeping, some into surprise and some into a method of emphasis.  

The singers whose performances serve most to engage the audience in their characters’ emotions are tenor Krešimir Špicer as Ulisse and mezzo-soprano Mireille Lebel as Penelope.  Lebel, with her amber-coloured voice and gleaming tone, made Penelope a portrait of a woman in extreme psychological distress with anguish imbuing her every line.  Because of this portrayal it is completely logical that even after Ulisse strings the bow and kills the suitors that her doubts remain.  It appeared very wise of Monteverdi and his librettist Giacomo Badoardo to realize that 20 years of longing and pain cannot be wiped out in a moment.

The rest of the cast presents a series of strong performances.  Isaiah Bell’s gorgeous, honey-coloured tenor and glowing tone differentiate all the pain of L’umana Fragilità from all the lustiness of Eurimaco, a young man in love with one of Penelope’s servants, Melanto.  In contrast, Carla Huhtanen’s bright, agile soprano linked the fickle, allegorical Fortuna to the flightiness of Melanto, the only woman serving Penelope who encourages her to remarry.

Soprano Meghan Lindsay is a magisterial Minerva, whose firm, commanding tones make her dominate every scene in which she appeared.  Stephen Hegedus’s pitch-black bass-baritone and resonant voice make his single scene as an enraged Neptune memorable through the power he conveys. 

Among the human characters sympathetic to Penelope’s plight, Aaron Sheehan’s clear tenor conveys the concern of the shepherd Eumete, Christopher Enns’s more heroic tenor is well suited Ulisse’s valiant son Telemaco and Laura Pudwell’s expressive mezzo-soprano brings out both the nurse Ericlea’s love for Penelope as well as the comedy of Ericlea’s debate with herself in Act 3 whether or not to reveal a secret she has discovered as to the beggar’s real identity.

Among the suitors, both Michael Taylor as Pisandro and Kevin Skelton as Anfinomo wield very high tenors in the haute-contre range.  To distinguish the two, Taylor lends Pisandro an air of irascibility and Skelton Anfinomo an air of cool egocentricity.  In power both pale deliberately in face of the brutal forcefulness of Douglas Williams as Antinoo, the only suitor to harass Penelope both physically and mentally.  Williams gives his fluid bass-baritone a rough edge to suit the character in complete contrast to the smoothness he lent Figaro when he sang that role in The Marriage of Figaro for OA last year.

As in Ulisse in 2009, Pynkoski omits the comic character of the parasite Iro, funnelling what little comedy there is in the opera into the impudent Melanto and the uncertain Ericlea.  More significant is his omission of the goddess Giunone (Juno), who appears in two short scenes in Act 3 in conference with the other three gods in the opera.  By omitting Giunone and these scenes, Pynkoski excises the gods entirely from Act 3 so that the opera rather more clearly shows that the final resolution of Penelope’s recognition of Ulisse is entirely a human question. 

In 2009 David Fallis conducted the Toronto Consort which had been augmented to 29 players.  This time Fallis conducted the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra which has been reduced to only 17 players including two harpsichords, two theorbos, a harp, a small box organ played by Fallis himself and percussion.  The only wind instruments are two recorders.  The result was a an exquisite blend of plucked and bowed strings underpinned by the organ and recorders with the percussion used to intensify bolts of lightning, the flashing of arrows and the storm at sea.  Fallis’s tempi are impressively well chosen throughout. 

Ulisse is the least performed of Monteverdi’s three surviving operas, but when it is performed with such insight and vigour as here, it is difficult to understand why it should be neglected.  Under Pynkoski’s firm direction aided by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg’s graceful choreography, Ulisse emerges as a masterpiece of early opera in which the human capacity for endurance and hope ultimately triumphs over the forces of time and fortune.  The reuniting of the long-separated couple is celebrated in a dance borrowed from Orfeo in which everyone joins in, including the conductor – a wonderful conclusion to this masterful production that keeps spectacle and deep emotion in perfect balance while beautifully depicting the slow but irresistible emergence of joy from despair.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a version of the review of this production that will appear later this year in Opera News.

Photo: (from top) Mireille Lebel as Penelope, Douglas Williams as Antinoo, Kevin Skelton as Anfinomo and Krešimir Špicer as Ulisse; Carla Huhtanen as La Fortuna, Douglas Williams as Il Tempo, Isaiah Bell as L’umana Fragilità and Meghan Lindsay as L’Amore; Krešimir Špicer as Ulisse and Mireille Lebel as Penelope. ©Bruce Zinger.

For tickets, visit https://operaatelier.com.