The Full Monteverdi

John Caird's superb staging of Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is the second episode of a Garsington Opera trilogy

Authority and gravitas: Ed Lyon as Ulisse (also, disguised as an old beggar) Pictures © Craig Fuller/Julian Guidera

Claudio Monteverdi’s three extant operas - L’Orfeo (1606/7), Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Ulysses’ Return to his Homeland, 1640) and L’incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea, 1643) - are virtually all that survives of the 10 dramatic works he is known to have written for the stage. There is one additional fragment - the final ‘Lamento’ of Arianna (1607/8), which was so popular in the composer’s lifetime that he published it three times between 1614 and 1641, first as a madrigal for five voices, then as a solo, and finally in a sacred revision as Lamento della Madonna.

Despite the obvious stylistic differences between Orfeo - written for the Gonzaga court at Mantua where there was no theatre - and Ulisse and Poppea intended for Venice’s first public theatre, some modern directors have treated them as a trilogy. This was how, at the 1978 Edinburgh Festival, I first experienced these masterpieces in a fabled Zurich Opera production staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt - an unforgettable experience for a 24-year-old. My love for these works was cemented there and then, and it now refreshed by a new Ulisse at Garsington Opera.