The Return of Ulysses

GIVE HER SOME SPACE Marie Lenormand, as Penelope, rebuffs her suitors while decked out in COT’s fine costumes.

Once again, Chicago Opera Theater has assembled an almost iron-clad cast for a rarely seen opera requiring the services, and budget, of a major company and succeeded. Anchored by mezzo-soprano Marie Lenormand’s eloquent and pitch-perfect Penelope, Claudio Monteverdi’s 330-year-old The Return of Ulysses (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) with a cast of 18 characters is another feather in the cap of this risk-taking company. With its low humor, high-minded talk among gods and mortals, and one ultra-eloquent shepherd, COT again makes its presence powerfully felt in the city’s opera culture.

This production also rounds out COT’s survey of Monteverdi’s three remaining operas, all conducted and directed by Jane Glover and Diane Paulus, respectively. These were among the first operas ever written, setting in motion the grand opera that generally holds the stage across the Loop at Lyric Opera. But these works require every bit as much care and tending for an audience to understand them today as do those by Rossini and Mozart.

Monteverdi’s setting of the final pages of the Odyssey—with Ulysses arriving at Ithaca, discovering the defilement of his home, and then cleaning house—treats the humans as toys of the gods. Servants provide comic relief and another layer of humanity, and are shown to be more in touch with their animal desires than their masters are. The one being who gets to travel between both worlds is Minerva, who coaches Ulysses in his ultimate restoration to power.

That power struggle is artfully captured in architect Rafael Viñoly’s unit set. A tiered three-story construction of rectangles, it opens and closes to let singers on and off the stage. The set virtually becomes a character in the drama as it creates a barrier between Penelope’s palace and the water lapping at its edge, and later allows for the destruction of her suitors, picked off one by one from the roof by Ulysses and Minerva. COT scored a massive coup in getting this music-loving star architect to design Ulysses’ set, and he graciously delivered.

For their parts, Paulus and Glover sensitively respect the taste of the original Venetians for whom Monteverdi wrote the opera. By insisting the singers stay as close to speech as possible, occasionally even spitting out the libretto’s lines, it becomes a sung drama without a single moment of individual display. Opera would later grow into a star-making enterprise, but not at this early stage.

Again in a unique challenge, Glover had to construct the score for Ulysses, since no copies from the original exist. She settled on using only strings, which is probably what was heard at the first performances, held in a small theater. But the Harris isn’t a small theater, so a few woodwinds, brass and percussion to spice things up would have been welcome. Still, if COT had to cut budgetary corners somewhere, this was the smartest place to do it.

And the cast! Lenormand, a French mezzo, is touching and tragic as can be as the patient Penelope. She rarely gets to wield her voice with full power, since Monteverdi sets almost all of her text in recitative, but she is nonetheless gripping. She may not have a ringing sound, but she’s clear, and that’s good.

Mark Le Brocq is less satisfying as Ulysses. His tenor is undistinguished, being fairly straightforward and colorless. His acting almost makes you forget that, given how he throws himself into the challenges facing Ulysses in reclaiming his house and his wife.

Everyone else in this “Now, who is that again?” cast stands out, but none more so than tenor Nicholas Phan as Penelope’s son Telemachus. His smooth and robust voice carries over the orchestra well; he’s a convincing actor and one to keep an eye on.

Paul Corona as the suitor Antinous excels as a buffoon, and, rare for a young singer, is noticed more for his richly textured baritone than his acting. That holds true for Honduran soprano Milena Pineda, as well, the slinky young singer who holds the stage as Penelope’s servant Melantius with a couple tons of verve.

We could go on about the young singers, but that would shortchange the cast’s veteran, Robin Leggate, as the blind shepherd Eumaeus. When the gifted tenor discovers that Ulysses has returned, he breaks your heart. (How someone can be blind and a shepherd has never made sense to us, by the way.) If you’ve ever wanted to see a singer inhabit a role, go for Leggate. If you’ve ever wanted to see young singers succeeding spectacularly, go for Lenormand and Phan. Or you can simply enjoy both at once.—Marc Geelhoed

Ulysses rules the roost Thursday 5.