Let’s Try Something New at the Carnival

After they’d won a war back in the 1100’s, the people of Venice celebrated with a street fair. Simplistic old-fashioned games, monotonous music on untuned instruments, children lost in the crowds, easy transmission of airborne diseases, that sort of thing. What really stood out, however, was the masks. The Venetians loved wearing elaborate facemasks, and the springtime tradition stuck.

Five hundred years later, the annual Carnival of Venice was still up and running, and it was a lot like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but with better masks. In 1640, Claudio Monteverdi, the aging music master over at St Mark’s cathedral, was persuaded to compose a musical drama for the carnival, so he dusted off his harpsichord, and worked up some tunes.

His songs explained how Ulysses came back from the Trojan wars, and found his palace occupied by not just his wife, but three shady fellows vying to be Ulysses’ replacement.

The city of Venice made some space for Monteverdi’s show, over at the new opera house, and it was a hit. They took it on the road, performing it over in Bologna; and the next year they staged it again in Venice. The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland was among the earliest operas ever performed.

Then Monteverdi dropped Ulysses, and set up The Marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia, and later The Coronation of Poppea, and the world of opera was off and running with some solid entries, thanks to the Venice Carnivals. Claudio himself was done; he died within a year.

What Does a 400-Year-Old Opera Sound Like?

Ulysses is no small entertainment; it’s two and a half hours long, and it can be a bit hard to sit through, in my opinion. It’s true that Monteverdi composed music for the entire span of the performance – no plain talking allowed – but as far as I can tell, on first hearing, he didn’t really reach any other goals.

To me, it kind of runs on and on, with the melodies simple and murky, and not very different from each other. There’s no great variation in tonality or rhythm or even pitch. Duets are rare, choruses absent, and it’s all backed by a very small variety of instruments. It seems to me that the conductor down there in the pit has very little to do, except mark the passage of time. You won’t drive home bouncing and singing in your car.

Please note: Most people who know something about music completely disagree with me on these points. Monteverdi is said to be a musical innovator, bringing color and complexity into his music, experimenting with techniques and emotions, and lighting a spark for the development of opera (and music in general) for centuries to come.

Well, I can’t detect all of that, so this sounds like a challenge; I should go see it again sometime, and try to get a little more out of Ulysses.

I do appreciate the narrative, as worded by the librettist Giacomo Badoaro, because I could mostly tell what was going on (after I gave up and read the story during an intermission). But it moves very slowly, and probably no musicologist will deny that. (What I missed most was the writing of Giovanni Busenello, the fellow that Monteverdi hired later to write Poppea, because compared to that torrent of florid lyrics, Badoaro just writes sentences.)

Mostly, He Just Walks Toward His House

It's kind of a simple story, but nicely presented in the video I saw (on Medici.tv) from Zurich in 2002. Here we see Ulysses unceremoniously dumped on a beach (odd for a war hero returning victorious), and he links up with some friends and his son, so they can work their way back into the palace. It’s not easy, because the loyal wife Penelope is there, beset by three unscrupulous guys who both compete and work as a team, to become her new husband.

Ulysses kills the three “suitors”, and convinces the skeptical Penelope that it really is him, and that is a happy ending. Getting back home is difficult, because it has really been a long time since he was there, and the three suitors are actually making progress in breaking down Penelope’s long-tested loyalty. (Though they all seem like hapless lunkheads to me, and Penelope is pretty smart.)

On the other hand, what makes Ulysses’ work much easier, is that various Greek gods are right there, on the stage, offering assistance in the form of disguises, scary bolts of lightning, magical debilitation of Ulysses’ enemies, and so on. With all the gods on his side, if you think about it, you’d expect him to prevail against these three doofs, no question.

(But again, I don’t understand what gods can do. If they’re all-powerful, then they could have just carried Ulysses home, deactivated his enemies, and placed a nice dinner on the table for him and Penelope. Monteverdi and Badoaro would have almost nothing to write about.)

Nice Work at Zurich

I like these simple stage sets. Zurich has what looks like sand, a small house made out bleached stonework, a tree, and little else. There are some very basic drawings – almost cave art – here and there, and the singers do the rest. Quite appealing, and sufficient.

Fair to say, I found it jarring to see a man called Dietrich Henschel playing Ulysses, and here’s why. Mr. Henschel does a great job, for sure, but he is physically small, and has delicate features and a kindly face. For Ulysses, the war hero and champion of the Greeks, I expected someone huge and ferocious. I have recently learned that I was making a serious mistake, however. The real Ulysses was known for being wise, judicious, and clever, not for being an intimidating beast. I repeat: I’d better watch this one again.

Meanwhile, an oddly distracting feature on the stage in Zurich is young Jonas Kaufmann, who has a secondary role at age 33, as Ulysses’ son. It’s like seeing Pavarotti singing the pageboy in Ballo, as a child.

My final casting note: Long-suffering Penelope is sung by the mezzo Vesselina Kasarova, and her particular role here has some of the lowest notes I’ve ever heard sung by a woman, quite remarkable. I had to look her up, half expecting to find an example of a “dramatic contralto”.

Grab Your Mask and Go!

The Carnival of Venice continued yearly until the Emperor stopped it in 1797; he came down hard on crimes like wearing a mask. Venice started it up again in 1979, and you can wear a mask, and enter the mask contest. It happens every year from mid-February to early March, and they still have operas on the agenda.