Monteverdi

La finta pazza Licori and Poroserpina rapita were written twenty many years later though the composer was in Venice. The operas Adone, Ulisse, Le nozze d'Enea, and Poppea have been written in a yearly sequence in between 1639 and 1642.

By the time opera came to Venice, Monteverdi was already intimately familiar on the genre. Monteverdi had written his Orfeo in 1607, which for most music historians, is regarded the very first very good opera. In addition, Monteverdi had usually demonstrated a fascination from the interplay among music and drama, as witnessed by his dramatic madrigals. Thus composing opera was more like a rediscovery than a discovery for Monteverdi: "he have been involved in opera in his Mantuan period--which involved musicians of his capella, his pupils and even his son . . . " But Monteverdi did not right away embrace the Venetian operatic scene; it looks that he sat back and contemplated the direction from the genre prior to being personally involved. Once he finally tested the waters, Monteverdi did so by reviving one of his previously written operas, Arianna. Arianna was first staged in Mantua in 1608 and was revived in Venice in 1639-40: "This served to remind Venetians of his substantial musical presence . . . Arianna had somehow gained an extraordinary reputation in opera's brief history." Monteverdi's Arianna was the first opera staged at the Venetian Teatro S. Moise.

By the mid-seventeenth century, opera had undergone a transformation. The globe of court opera started out to move into the realm of public entertainment: "After a somewhat patchy existence in Florence, Rome and several northern cities, the new theatrical genre was brought to Venice--where it took on the characteristics of the public entertainment having a paying, not just invited, audience . . . " Whereas elaborate and wonderful features for example scenic effects grew in complexity, the opera orchestra underwent a reduction in numbers and in instrumental color. These changes have been welcomed by composers as it meant how the strength with the composer's music was inherent from the notes instead of the external appurtenances.

The story of Ulysses is based on the plot from the Odyssey. It takes location after the Trojan War has long ended. Ulysses has not yet returned to Ithaca as well as the wife who awaits him. Upon his return to his native island he is met by Minerva, disguised being a youth. She warns him that suitors have ardently courted Penelope, his wife. Minerva advises Ulysses to disguise himself as an old man just before his return to court; however, as soon as Ulysses meets his son, Telemachus, the father reveals his disguise. Afterward, each father and son plan the elder's return to the palace. As soon as he reaches the palace, Ulysses finds that Penelope has proclaimed she will marry the suitor who can draw her husband's mighty bow. A single right after another, the suitors fail. Once Ulysses tries, he succeeds, then uses the bow to kill the suitors. But upon revealing his actual identity to Penelope, she believes herself even now the victim of trickery. Only once Ulysses describes the couple's nuptial quilt, which only he as her husband would know, does Penelope realize that her faithfulness has been rewarded.

Monteverdi's very first new opera in Venice was The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland.

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