Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
Performer: Monteverdi Choir
Orchestra: English Baroque Soloists
Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Audio CD
Number of Discs: 3
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: SDG
Size: 3.31 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Furio Zanasi, Ulisse
Lucile Richardot, Penelope
Krystian Adam, Telemaco
Hana Blažíková, Minerva/Fortuna
Gianluca Buratto, Tempo/Nettuno/Antinoo
Michał Czerniawski, Pisandro
Gareth Treseder, Anfinomo
Zachary Wilder, Eurimaco
Anna Dennis, Melanto
John Taylor Ward, Giove
Francesca Boncompagni, Giunone
Robert Burt, Iro
Francisco Fernández-Rueda, Eumete
Fragilità Carlo Vistoli, Humana
Silvia Frigato, Amore
Francesca Biliotti, Ericlea
Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Act I
01. Prologue. Mortal cosa son io
02. Di misera Regina
03. Duri, e penosi
04. Superbo è l’uom
05. In questo basso mondo
06. Dormo ancora, o son desto?
07. Cara e lieta gioventù
08. Tu d’Aretusa al fonte intanto vanne
09. Donate un giorno, o Dei
10. Come mal si salva un regio ammanto
11. Pastor d’armento può
12. Ulisse generoso
Act II
13. Sinfonia
14. Lieto cammino
15. O gran figlio d’Ulisse
16. Che veggio, ohimè, che miro?
17. Eurimaco, la donna
18. Sono l’altre Regine
19. All’allegrezze dunque
20. Apportator d’alte novelle vengo
21. Compagni, udiste?
22. Perir non può chi tien per scorta il Cielo
23. Io vidi, o pelegrin, de’ Proci amanti
24. Del mio lungo viaggio i torti errori
25. Sempre, villano Eumete
Act III
26. O dolor, o martir che l’alma attrista
27. Forza d’occulto affetto
28. È saggio Eumete, è saggio!
29. Fiamma è l’ira, o gran Dea
30. Gran Giove
31. Ericlea, che vuoi far?
32. Ogni vostra ragion sen porta ‘l vento
33. O delle mie fatiche
Monteverdi’s great opera is a celebration of unwavering devotion, conveyed in some of the composer’s most poignant, heart-breaking music. After two brutal decades of war, the weary Ulysses is washed up on the rocky shore of his home island of Ithaca. There, he discovers the hordes of depraved admirers who have beseiged his faithful wife Penelope in his 20-year absence – and launches into battle to win back her love. Monteverdi’s opera is a celebration of unwavering devotion, conveyed in some of the composer’s most poignant, heartbreaking music. John Eliot Gardiner leads an exemplary cast of world-class singers alongside the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in this live recording from The National Forum of Music in Wroclaw, Poland – part of their critically acclaimed Monteverdi 450 tour in 2017,
“Fifty years ago, Monteverdi epitomized for me all that was most exotic and alluring about Italian music of the early 17th century. His music spoke to audiences so directly: It demanded their attention through its glorious palette of colors and the passionate utterance in which it was couched, whether composed for the church, the chamber, or the theater. I became hooked, much in the same way that many people (myself included) are drawn to the works of his contemporaries: Shakespeare or John Donne, Rubens or Caravaggio—all humanists in the fullest sense of the term. These great creative artists were of a generation that lived through those turbulent, seminal years either side of 1600, a quasi-millennial moment of apocalyptic end-of-times apprehension. It was a theme that surfaces most obviously in Shakespeare’s late plays. Nor was it just the scientists and philosophers who contributed to the ferment of ideas that turned the intellectual life of Europe upside down.
Now, four centuries later, we have an opportunity to bring about a significant breakthrough in public awareness of Monteverdi’s part in this revolution. As good a place to start as any would be by celebrating and recalibrating that astonishing fusion of rich musical beauty with theatrical verisimilitude that is the hallmark of his operas. A fitting 450th- birthday present to Monteverdi, I believe, would then be to put the excitement, and per- haps also the trepidation, back into his music.” (John Eliot Gardiner)/blockquote>