Thursday, October 19, 2017, at 7:00 pm Pre-concert lecture by Ellen Rosand at 5:45 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse Monteverdi: The Birth of Opera Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria Music by Claudio Monteverdi Libretto by Giacomo Badoaro , after Homer Monteverdi Choir English Baroque Soloists Sir John Eliot Gardiner , Conductor Furio Zanasi , Ulisse Marianna Pizzolato , 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 Carlo Vistoli , Umana Fragilità Silvia Frigato , Amore Francesca Biliotti , Ericlea John Eliot Gardiner and Elsa Rooke , Co-Directors This performance is also part of Great Performers. (Program continued) Monteverdi: The Birth of Opera is made possible in part by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater Please make certain all your electronic devices Adrienne Arsht Stage are switched off. WhiteLightFestival.org Support for Great Performers is provided by Rita E. UPCOMING WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL EVENTS: and Gustave M. Hauser, Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, Great Performers Circle, Chairman’s Friday, October 20 at 7:30 pm at Gerald W. Lynch Council, and Friends of Lincoln Center. Theater at John Jay College Saturday, October 21 at 3:00 pm and 7:30 pm Public support is provided by the New York State Dancing Voices Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Meredith Monk , voice, composer, and director Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Young People’s Chorus of New York City Legislature. Francisco J. Núñez , artistic director Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is Elizabeth Núñez , associate artistic director provided by the Leon Levy Fund. Katie Geissinger , voice Endowment support is also provided by UBS. Allison Sniffin , voice and piano American Contemporary Music Ensemble American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Center Wednesda y–Thursday, November 1–2, at 7:30 pm Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center in the Rose Theater Stabat mater (New York premiere) NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of Jessica Lang Dance Lincoln Center Jessica Lang , director and choreographer Artist Catering provided by Zabar’s and Zabars.com Orchestra of St. Luke’s Speranza Scappucci , conductor Andriana Chuchman , soprano The Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras would like to Anthony Roth Costanzo , countertenor thank and acknowledge the Monteverdi 450th MOZART: Divertimento in F major Anniversary Circle supporters for their support of PERGOLESI: Stabat mater this tour. November 1 –11 Regal by Meloni & Farrier Organbuilders The Psalms Experience (U.S. premiere) Baroque Keyboards Choir of Trinity Wall Street Netherlands Chamber Choir Tallis Scholars Norwegian Soloists’ Choir 150 psalms. 150 composers. 4 choirs. 12 concerts. Visit PsalmsExperience.org for full concert schedule. 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 - gram cancellations or to request a White Light Festival brochure. Visit WhiteLightFestival.org for full festival listings. Join the conversation: #WhiteLightFestival 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. The Return of Ulysses MONTEVERDI Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria , SV 325 (1640) Prologue Act I Act II (Scenes 1–3) Intermission Act II (Scenes 4–12) Act III This program is approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes long, including intermission. Please join the artists for a White Light Lounge in the Alice Tully Hall lobby following the performance. WhiteLightFestival.org Director’s Note: Celebrating Monteverdi 450 By John Eliot Gardiner 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 utter - ance 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 appre hension. It was a theme that surfaces most obviously in Shakespeare’s late plays. Nor was it just the sci - entists and philosophers who contributed to the ferment of ideas that turned the intellec - tual life of Europe upside down. Now, four centuries later, we have an opportunity to bring about a significant break - through 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 musi - cal 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. —Copyright © by John Eliot Gardiner. Excerpted from the essay “Monteverdi at the Crossroads,” published in the journal Early Music, xlv/3 (August 2017) Please turn to page 30 for a full interview with John Eliot Gardiner. Synopsis see him, introduces the old beggar. Telemachus dispatches Eumaeus to report By Ellen Rosand his arrival to Penelope and is left alone with the beggar, who reveals himself. Ulysses Prologue sends Telemachus to his mother, promising Human Frailty (representing Ulysses) is to follow soon, but in disguise. taunted by Time, Fortune, and Love, sym - bolizing the forces at work in the opera Melantho complains to Eurymachos of that interact to bring it to resolution, when Penelope’s refusal to love, but the couple Love vanquishes her companions. soon lose themselves in melodious love- making. The suitors beg Penelope to love Act I one of them, but she still refuses. They Penelope laments Ulysses’ (Ulisse) long agree to intensify their wooing with song absence and is comforted by her nurse and dance. Penelope rejoices at Eumaeus’ Eurykleia (Ericlea). Melantho (Melanto), her report of Telemachus’ arrival but cannot handmaiden, conspires with her lover believe that Ulysses is near. Fearing that Eurymachos (Eurimaco) to convince Penel- Telemachus will quash their hopes of pos - ope to choose a new husband. Ulysses awak - sessing the kingdom, the suitors vow to kill ens on the deserted shore of Ithaca, having him, but are terrified by the evil omen of an been deposited there by the Phaeacians. eagle flying overhead. They abandon their Neptune (Nettuno) protests against Ulysses’ murderous vow and redouble their efforts return with Jupiter (Giove) and is granted to woo Penelope with gifts. Minerva reveals permission to punish the Phaeacians, who to Ulysses her plan for the suitors’ defeat. are turned into a rock. After railing against the Phaeacians and the implacable gods for Telemachus reports to Penelope on his wan - abandoning him, Ulysses seeks information derings and Eumaeus introduces the dis - on his whereabouts from a shepherd boy, guised beggar to the court, where the suit - who turns out to be the goddess Minerva ors insult him. Iros challenges him to a fight, (Homer’s Athena). She pledges to aid him in which the beggar wins, and Penelope, destroying the suitors, who have despoiled moved by his courage, invites him to his kingdom, and in reconquering his wife. remain. Unknowingly inspired by Minerva, Minerva departs for Sparta to fetch his son she agrees to marry whichever suitor can Telemachus (Telemaco), while Ulysses, dis - string Ulysses’ bow. When all three fail, the guised as a beggar, seeks hospitality from his beggar attempts the task and is successful, old friend, the shepherd Eumaeus (Eumete). whereupon, accompanied by loud thunder claps sent by Jupiter, he kills the suitors. Melantho entreats Penelope to choose one of the suitors to marry, but she adamantly Act III refuses. Eumaeus, enjoying his simple life Iros laments the suitors’ death, which as a swineherd, is accosted by the glutto - leaves him without sustenance, and vows nous parasite Iros (Iro), who attempts to to kill himself. Eumaeus, Telemachus, and steal Eumaeus’ pigs but is chased away. As Eurykleia all try unsuccessfully to convince Eumaeus muses on the fate of his lost mas - Penelope that the beggar was Ulysses in ter Ulysses, an old beggar approaches and disguise. When he appears in his own assures him that Ulysses is near, urging him clothes and conveys one of their marital to tell Penelope. Eumaeus fails to recognize secrets, Penelope finally believes him and his master, but offers him shelter. the opera ends with a beautiful love duet. Act II Telemachus returns from Sparta on —Copyright © 2017 by Lincoln Center for the Minerva’s chariot. Eumaeus, overjoyed to Performing Arts, Inc. WhiteLightFestival.org Notes on the Program of celebrating a special political occasion and bringing glory to a particular ruling By Ellen Rosand dynasty, like L’Orfe o, opera in Venice was a commercial venture. It functioned within Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria , SV 325 (1640) the social context of Carnival, the notorious CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI Born May 15, 1567, in Cremona, Italy season that since the 16th century had fea - Died November 29, 1643, in Venice tured a variety of theatrical entertainments, from spoken comedies and musical It was not until 1640, when he was nearly pageants to jousts and bullfights.