Monday–Wednesday, November 14–16, 2016, at 7:30 pm Post-performance discussion on Tuesday, November 15 with Adrian Kohler, Basil Jones, and Ara Guzelimian Il ritorno d’Ulisse (“The Return of Ulysses”) Handspring Puppet Company William Kentridge , Director Ricercar Consort Philippe Pierlot , Musical Director and Arrangements This performance is approximately one hour and 40 minutes long and will be performed without intermission. Please join the artists for a White Light Lounge immediately following the performance. (Program continued) These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off. WhiteLightFestival.org MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center. UPCOMING WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL EVENTS: Artist Catering provided by Zabar’s and Zabars.com Wednesday, November 16 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Medieval to Modern Center Jeremy Denk , piano Works by MACHAUT, MONTEVERDI, BACH, Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center MOZART, BEETHOVEN, BRAHMS, DEBUSSY, LIGETI, PHILIP GLASS, and more NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of Lincoln Center For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit WhiteLightFestival.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to learn about pro - The 1998 version of Return of Ulysses was pro - gram cancellations or to request a White Light duced by La Monnaie/De Munt (Brussels, Belgium), Festival brochure. Handspring Puppet Company (Cape Town, South Africa), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria), Visit WhiteLightFestival.org for full festival Kunsten FESTIVAL des Arts (Brussels, Belgium) listings. with generous support of the Flemish Government. Join the conversation: #LCWhiteLight 2016 version produced by Quaternaire/Paris and restaged with the support of Asia Culture Center, Asian Arts Theatre, Gwangju-South Korea, and Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival. We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building. Il ritorno d’Ulisse (“The Return of Ulysses”) Music by Claud io Mon teve rdi Arr ange men ts by Ph ili ppe Pierl ot Libretto by Giacomo Badoaro, after Homer Handspring Puppet Company Willia m Ken tri dge , Director Ph ili ppe Pierl ot, Musical Director Jeffr ey Tho mpson , Uli sse Ro mina Basso , Pene lope Anna Zande r, Melanto/Anfinomo Jea n-Franço is Nove lli , Telemaco/Pisandro Hanna Bayod i-Hirt , Minerva/Amore An ton io Abe te, Nettuno/Tempo/Antinoo Va lerio Con taldo , Eumete/Eurimaco/Giove Rice rca r Conso rt : Ph ili ppe Pier lot (conductor, viola da ga mba ), Giovanna Pess i ( harp ), Kao ri Uemura ( viola da gamba ), Sab ina Colonna ( viola da gamba ), Rainer Zipperling ( viola da gamba ), Edua rdo Egüe z ( theorbo, guitar ), Dan iel Zap ico (theorbo, guita r) Puppe teers : (Nov. 14, 16 ) Ad rian Koh ler, Bas il Jones , Bu si Zoku fa, En rico Wey , Gab riel Marchand (Nov. 15 ) Bu si Zoku fa, En rico Wey , Gab riel Marchand , Jonathan Ridd lebe rge r, Rache l Leona rd Ad rian Koh ler and Willi am Ken tri dge , Se t D es ign Ad ri an Koh ler, Puppe ts and Cos tume Des ign Wes ley France , Ligh ting Des ign and Technical Coordination WhiteLightFestival.org Director’s Note The Internal Lightning Bolt By William Kentridge The process of making the opera took approximately a year—eight months of The animated material for Il ritorno d’Ulisse , making drawings and editing animation film, a 1998 collaboration with Handspring and designing and carving puppets (done by Puppet Company, used fragments from Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet History of the Main Complaint , which came Company), and four months of rehearsing. before the opera and served as a sketch not for the plot or character of the opera, but a Part of this preparation involved looking sketch to see if the drawings I did and the through a series of medical videos. These music of Monteverdi were compatible. were of operations, barium meals, gastro - scopies, angiograms, arthroscopy, and so The opera Il ritorno d’Ulisse follows Homer on. One of the most remarkable for me and recounts Ulisse’s return after the Trojan was an angiogram—an X-ray image of dye War, his routing of the suitors who have being pumped into arteries around the besieged Penelope in the palace on Ithaca, heart. As the dye is released in one heart - and his reuniting with Penelope. What beat, in one pulse, it suffuses and turns Monteverdi and his librettist Badoaro added black a jagged tracery of the arteries. I had was a prologue in which the attributes of always assumed these to be gently curving Human Frailty, Time, Fortune, and Love dis - aerodynamically, or at least ergonomically pute over what will happen to Ulisse. It was designed. But the vessels are stepped, this prologue, with its central theme and jaggedly forked. This piece of film was put image of the human as vulnerable rather aside and sat on the editing room shelf than heroic, that brought me to do the opera. waiting to find its place. It is used early on Throughout the opera there is constant shift - in the opera. The god Giove comes to take ing both in the words and in the music a hand in the affairs and fortunes of Ulisse, between Ulisse’s optimism that he will pre - and as the singer sings the lines “I release vail and a fatalism that everything will be too thunderbolts,” we projected an image of hard. The prologue sets a tone and estab - what appears a lighting strike, but in fact is lishes a central set of images of the body this angiogram—a lightning strike inside which find their way through the opera. the body. —Copyright © 2004 by William Kentridge Synopsis father. Ulysses expresses his joy in a spir - ited aria, “O fortunato Ulisse.” By Paul Schiavo Eumaeus, having been driven from the Prologue palace by the suitors, wanders through the Three allegorical figures, Time, Fortune, countryside. As he goes, he extols the and Love, taunt a fourth, Human Frailty. pleasures of pastoral life. Meeting an old (The relevance of the latter figure to beggar (or so he thinks), Eumaeus offers Ulysses [Ulisse] is made evident in this him shelter, singing, “How gladly I wel - production.) After identifying themselves, come you.” they affirm in a trio that they control mankind’s destiny, rendering humanity Act II weak and helpless. Minerva escorts Telemachus home in her winged chariot. He rejoices at the prospect Act I of seeing his father at last, and with The action takes place on the island of Ithaca Minerva sings the praises of the gods. 20 years after Ulysses has sailed with the Reaching Ithaca, Telemachus receives a Greek army for Troy and a decade since the warm greeting from Eumaeus, in which he end of the Trojan War. In her palace, is joined by the beggar. After Eumaeus is Penelope sings plaintively of her husband’s dispatched to the palace to inform long absence, calling herself “queen of mis - Penelope of Telemachus’s return, Ulysses ery.” She has no notion that a ship bearing sheds his beggar’s disguise and reveals his Ulysses is approaching Ithaca. true identity to his son. This prompts a rap - turous duet. Ulysses then sends Meanwhile, Neptune (Nettuno) and Jupiter Telemachus to the palace, promising to (Giove) consider how to deal with Ulysses join him there. and Phaeacian mariners who have brought him home. Despite Neptune’s enmity Meanwhile, the three suitors, Antinous toward him, Ulysses is permitted to reach (Antinoo), Peisander (Pisandro), and his native land. Having been deposited Amphinomus (Anfinomo), urge Penelope while asleep on Ithaca’s shore, he awakes to take one of them as her husband. to find himself alone. Thinking himself “Come then, love,” they entreat, to which abandoned in yet another strange land, she repeatedly answers, “I do not want to Ulysses laments his apparent misfortune. love.” Eumaeus enters and tells his mis - He is cheered by the appearance of the tress of Telemachus’s imminent arrival. goddess Minerva (Homer’s Athena), who Overhearing this, the suitors plot to mur - has long acted as his protector. She tells der Telemachus. Ulysses that he is indeed on Ithaca and that Penelope has remained true to him Minerva appears again to Ulysses and, in a throughout his long absence. But she is florid, martial aria, tells him that he will be tormented by suitors who have abused her able to use his bow to kill the suitors. hospitality and taken up residence in her Eumaeus returns and tells Ulysses of the house, pressing for her hand in marriage. suitors. Confident of Minerva’s assistance, Minerva advises Ulysses to proceed to his Ulysses sings of the pleasure that will house disguised as a beggar. She then soon be his and sets off for the palace. directs him to find his old servant, Eumaeus (Eumete), while she goes to The suitors continue to entreat Penelope, fetch his son, Telemachus (Telemaco), offering jewels and other treasures. These who has gone abroad in search of his she refuses, but under the unsuspected WhiteLightFestival.org influence of Minerva, she declares that identity, but still his mother remains skepti - whoever can string Ulysses’s mighty bow cal.