LA CHIMERA - ITALIAN CINEMA'S LATEST GEM

I have now twice viewed the latest film from Alice Rohrwacher - the Italian director with the most German of names, and am in absolute awe. Throughout the first viewing I sensed something magical at work in the movie and in myself. While I frequently laugh and/or cry, or yell at the screen watching movies, it takes a special film for me to notice that I'm smiling so much my face almost hurts.  La Chimera is that movie.  

I remember admiring and even loving Rohrwacher's earlier work - The Wonders (2014) and Happy As Lazzaro (2018), but this, for me, is her best work so far. 

Visually arresting Rohrwacher has given La Chimera it's own universe - one that moves effortlessly between stark (but never dull) reality, fantasy, magical realism, and even absurdist comedy more accepted in literature and opera than cinema. As an avid opera lover - and particularly a lover of the works of Monteverdi, La Chimera jumped out at me in a way that I've not yet read in any review.  It happens within the first few moments of the opening scene, when the first music we hear is the fanfare from Monteverdi's Orfeo - the earliest known still regularly performed opera today, and it instantly served as a clue, this was going to have some ties to the Orpheus legend. Indeed, in its way, it is a sort of retelling of it, or at least heavily influenced by it.  

La Chimera also reminded me of Wim Wender's American film Paris, Texas in several ways, which, unlike my Orfeo discovery, I've now read in several other reviews. There are similarities, yes, but they seem more coincidental than influenced, and plenty of other directors pre-and-post Wenders have this in common.

The story elements in a nutshell: A British archeologist, Arthur, recently released from prison for tomb raiding, returns to Italy, and is on a train in search of his missing girlfriend, Beniamina. There is some trouble and the first bit of magical realism prepares us for what's to come - or may come.  Arthur arrives at the home of Flora, Beniamina's mother, (an absolutely magical performance from Isabella Rossellini), and her brood of loud, selfish daughters, who made me instantly think of harpies. We are also introduced to Italia, Flora's sadsack, talentless maid and voice student. Italia is an incredibly written character and Carol Duarte - who reminded me of a young Hildegard Behrens - infuses it with a lifeforce that is gently electrifying - which sounds like an odd combination, but there it is.

Rohrwacher has a brilliant eye for visual texture and its layers are imprinted throughout the entirety of La Chimera. Whether within the confines of a narrow train, the rundown ramshackle slum Arturo lives in surrounded by ragpickers and junkies, Flora's crumbling mansion, the sea and landscape, an abandoned train station turned into a home, or the chill and darkness of the caves that feel like hell, the visual richness of every scene adds immeasurably to this director's magnificent storytelling. 

At the center of all of this is the performance of Josh O'Connor as Arthur. With a minimum of dialogue, O'Connor's Arthur conveys the anger, angst, the bitterness of one having taken the fall for his wild associates, his aching longing for Euridice - I mean Beniamina - the headstrong confidence and determination - even in despair that he will find her and bring her back, like Orfeo.  For almost the entirety of La Chimera Arthur is clad in a plain white suit becoming, like his character, more soiled, dirty, and frayed, as he wends his way through the story. This costume decision feels more operatic than cinematic, and further ties together these two arts. 

I can't write more without destroying the incredible elements that make up this wondrous story of love, loss and redemption, but want to comment further on the use of music in La Chimera.  Along with the Monteverdi excerpts, there is a parade through the village with an "oom-pah" Italian band playing Noi siamo zingarelle from Flora's party in Verdi's La Traviata - as it accompanies a flatbed truck filled with drag queens and revelers. There are also several points where the villagers break into song, dance, and one particularly brilliant, magical moment, where soprano Edita Gruberova's beautiful recording of Mozart's Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!  morphs from being part of the soundtrack into an actual element of the movie - more on that I will not say.  

La Chimera is easily one of the most beautiful films I've seen this year - or in many years.  Audience reactions have been mixed because - well, it IS a strange movie when compared with so-called "standard" Hollywood fare. Critics on the other hand, have been going over the top in extolling the virtues of this glorious celebration of cinema.  Sadly, box office in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico totalled only $950k, so . . . clearly American audiences aren't interested. Fortunately La Chimera is streaming on a number of services, and Hulu offers it gratis on its subscription service. 

Rohrwacher has made an absolute dream of a movie - and even though the year isn't out yet, it goes towards the top of what will be my favorites of 2024.

'ORFEO: Hades and Heaven on Earth

 

After a two week hiatus from opera, I decided to return by going back to the beginning - or about as close as we can, so was delighted to discover a new production from Garsington Opera at Wormsley of Monteverdi's earliest surviving opera available on Operavision.

To call John Caird and Robert Jones' production "stunning" is an understatement.  The entirety of this "'Orfeo" is the very definition of gesamtkunstwerk and is one of the most perfect, most beautiful things I've ever seen on the screen.  I can only imagine the effect in the house must have been even more dazzling.  The visual elements are matched musically by the perfect period playing of Laurence Cummings and the English Concert.  The entirety is a joy to behold. 

One does not automatically think of gesamtkunstwerk or Wagner when considering early opera - or Italian opera generally, but Monteverdi's exquisite narrative flows seamlessly from scene-to-scene and moment-to-moment with a similarity that evokes Wagner in the very best zum raum wird heir die zeit (here time becomes space) manner.  

The Wormsley stage is surrounded by the orchestra with a magnificent playing area, transforming the bucolic countryside of Thrace into a sort of cross between the Elysian Fields and a jungle, leaves and vines and lush green grasses, all dominated by a floating ring serving as an important visual element throughout.  

Eschewing period-costumes, Mr. Jones has clad the entire company - orchestra, soloists, chorus and dancers - in era-defying frocks, trousers, and vests in whites and beiges, every one of them barefoot.  Each member of the company here is an integral link of the storytelling, dancing, singing, playing and moving across the space with a graceful fluidity so perfectly and beautifully wed to the score, it frequently took my breath away.

Aside from being beautiful to look at, the musical elements of this opera have rarely - in my experience at least (and I've heard and seen a lot of Orfei) been matched.  The closest experience I can think of is Trish Brown's equally brilliant (but wildly different) production for Simon Keenlyside.  Right now, I'm prone to calling this one "even better."  

The first 30 minutes of Orfeo may be among the most joyous in all of opera, remnding me again of Wagner and the final pages of Meistersinger, despite the entirely opposite sound worlds each composer creates and inhabits.

The heart and soul of every Orfeo is its hero, and in Ed Lyon, Garsington has produced perhaps the greatest I've seen.  Lyon has every Baroque vocal trick and tic in a formidable arsenal and his musicality is unempeachable.  Add to this the fact he is an actor of tremendous range, moves with a dancer's athleticism and you have a performance that is genuinely a tour de force, and goes straight to the heart.  After learning the tragic news of Eurydice, Lyon follows the narrative, "so grief stricken he cannot express his grief."  He kneels there for what seems an eternity, eyes staring out at us, unblinking and in disbelief as he imagines the horror of his beloved's demise.   

Another miracle of this production is the lighting design of Paul Pyant. The stunning light-filled ambiance of Act I does a 180 degree change in the dark, black, red, fiery dismal world of Hades, with Jones' costumes their physical match.  The boatman Caronte/Charon's vessel is made up of three woman surrounding him and the effect is disturbingly glorious. Frazer Scott's basso reaches the depths of the role and his being overtaken by Orfeo who begins his journey is pure magic.  

I could go on (and on) but suffice it to say, every element of this exquisite show is on the same level as what I've already described and the opera's brief two hours pass as if in a dream.  Diana Montague, Claire Lees, Laura Fleur, Zoe Drummond, Ossian Huskinsan, Lauren Joyann Morris and the rest of the singers, players and dancers each help create this beautiful world we are lucky to witness.

Following a rapturous ovation, with a nice touch having the singers turn their backs to the audiences and kneel before the orchestra as the players take their applause, there is a moment of silence, and, the singers standing in line, quietly and unaccompanied break into an almost otherworldly performance of Monteverdi's gorgeous madrigral Che dar più vi poss’io.  I cannot think of a more fitting way to end this perfect evening.  

Il Ritorno d'Ulisse: Henze takes on Monteverdi

Monteverdi/Henze - "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" Thomas Allen, Kathleen Kuhlmann - Salzburg Festival. I’ve gotten sworn at, swung at and nearly hit for including this on a list of favorites, always the usual arguments, “this is NOT Monteverdi” – “I can see Claudio turning in his grave” – “Henze has murdered Monteverdi” and on and on. Yawn. Nonetheless, to that end and before proceeding further, I include the following warning:

THIS VERSION IS NOT FOR MONTEVERDI PURISTS OR PERIOD OBSESSIVES. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Henze has taken the basic score of Monteverdi’s masterpiece (some will even argue about which of his surviving operas holds that title) and instead of reconstructing it in scholarly, period perfection has, instead, reconfigured the opera for modern audiences whose ears have been exposed to Stravinsky, Orff, Shostakovich and Strauss. His realizations present us a new portrait of Monteverdi’s vision, one painted in broadly sweeping post-Mahlerian strokes. Nearly everything about Henze’s "new opera” is grand and enormous, yet at its heart it does no more than serve the master, ultimately doing what Monteverdi wished; sharing one of the most beautiful, romantic and fantastic tales in human fiction, a story which resonates as strongly today as it did nearly 3,000 years ago.

Although the soundscape can be immense, there are more moment when Henze engages a smaller sound, grouping a few instruments together in a Baroque manner, if not the style we’re used to, in representing the very intimate family drama at the core of Homer. The employment of this yields enormous, theatrical results that have an emotional impact as grand as anything from Puccini or Wagner. Jeffrey Tate leads the massive ORF forces in a reading that is difficult to imagine being bettered in any way.


One example of this is the revelation of Ulisse to Telemaco, the child whose boyhood he missed entirely, now a young man. Telemaco, has for twenty years ached for his father as Penelope has her husband. At the proper moment, assured of its rightness, we witness the swift, dramatic change from old man to armor-garbed warrior which, in its own right is startling. More startling still however, is the way Henze punches up the musical impact, as Ulisse commands his son to race home and prepare Penelope for her husband’s return. Quietly tender in Monteverdi’s original, the moment now also becomes an emotional charge; no longer merely a son telling his mother of her husband’s return, but carrying out an order to prepare the way for the return of her King! Thomas Allen’s Ulisse presents all of this powerfully both in presence and voice as, with restored dignity, he watches his child race towards his beloved Ithaca. It is a scene that, no matter how many times I watch it, leaves me with a lump in my throat and my skin tingling with excitement.

The entirety of the physical production and Michael Hempe’s direction brings ratchets the work up to Festival level, and is nothing but splendid. Chariots and gods, Neptune rising from the sea, with intimations of baroque spectacle and stage machinery bringing us into a world where anything is possible. Allen’s assumption, not only of the title role, but also of Human Frailty where, in the Prologue the nearly naked singer sets the tone for the whimsical and merciless abuse even a hero may suffer at the hands of the gods.

As Penelope, Kathleen Kuhlmann is every bit Mr. Allen’s match with a cool reserve that belies the churning of the queen’s ever shifting emotions. She seems both prone towards begging, praying yet cursing the gods and her fate. She also reveals a woman who, alone for so many years has grown to appreciate her role and her status and the attention she commands. Penelope has many sides to her, and Kuhlmann shows each of them and all we can do is watch, respect and, if you’re like me, fall in love with her.

Henze, wrote about his examination of the Monteverdi score fragments (making sure to note how none were in Monteverdi’s own hand) as well as the nearly torturous details he pored over in order to arrive at this reconstruction. All of it comes through, resplendently, as we hear how he treated every aspect of Monteverdi’s magnificent opera with respect, lavishing upon it detail upon detail resulting in a work which, in its own way, is as emotionally satisfying as Monteverdi’s original . . . or the scholarly reconstructions purporting so to be. Throughout, there is never a false moment or anything rote, mechanical or uninspired.

This Salzburg Festival production holds one in its thrall, from its moving prologue, right up through Ulisse and Penelope's final duet, as glorious to see as it is to hear.

The Full Monteverdi: Where Love Comes to Die

Where love comes to die.

Several years ago I attempted to watch this film and, truth be told, couldn't make it through the first madrigal, and I adore Monteverdi. This morning, bored and with time on my hands, I decided to give it another shot, and my reaction could not have been any more different to my original. I was, in a word, overwhelmed. I've had a lifelong love of all things Monteverdi and the madrigal books were amongst the first works of his I fell for. Hard. The idea of setting Monteverdi's Fourth Book of Madrigals to a lip-synched film of 21st century couples breaking up in a posh London restaurant, well somehow it just didn't feel right. This time through however, I got exactly what director John La Bouchardiere must have felt when he thought this to be a great idea for a film.

While it isn't necessary to have visualizations for Monteverdi's grand excursion into love and loss to make their point - the music and word settings have for centuries made their points beautifully sans pictures, La Bouchardiere achieves something beautiful, managing to capture the heartbreak of love in sharing the emotional separation of these couples, all occuring simultaneously in a single night.

Through the use of shifting cameras, lighting, filters and various techniques, often in cineme verite) style, along with brief flashback sequences, we see the couples at their most vulnerable, high and low, loving and losing: camping trips, christenings, post love making (discretely, no nudity here) sense both their feelings of elation and doom. All of this somehow gracefully compliments Monteverdi's difficult, stunning harmonizations and beautifully complex polyphony. The richness of the madrigals lays wide open the naked emotions with a brutal power which LaBouchardiere captures with a sure and natural sense of timing, knowing. He knows where to place, move, and leave his cameras, when to cut to a flashback, where to allow reaction shots all flowing in seamless rhythm with this amazing music.

The vocal ensemble I Fagiolini, paired with silent actors make up the entire cast, holding the story together as though their lives depended upon it. I Fagiolini approach Monteverdi powerfully, often in full voice as opposed to the delicacy so frequently heard in this music from other early music ensembles. The result is an often thrilling, sometimes raw soundscape of theatricality, both original and unique in early music. The sighing quality so necessary in Monteverdi is not eliminated by this approach but rather highlights that quality through the use of more complex dynamics and shadings with which I Faiolini imbues the score. It's rather marvelous.

I can imagine many will feel the same as I when first trying to watch this, but, you've got an hour and can open your heart to some of the most exquisite music ever written as the "script" for an oddly beautiful film, I strongly recommend this gem of a movie.

A Stunning Poppea from Glyndebourne

When Robert Carsen’s new production of Monteverdi’s final masterpiece “L'incoronazione di Poppea" opened at Glyndebourne last June, critical opinions were being thrown out fast and furious, each critic seemingly trying to outdo the next in a race to either laud or loathe the thing. Early on, Carsen had made no bones about, nor attempt to hide, how he and his production team were creating a Poppea "specifically for Glyndebourne" – and some critics took umbrage with it, variously accusing the director of “navel gazing” – “appealing to the lowest common denominator” and creating something worthy of no more than a “yawn and sneer at.” These critics were, if not all morons, at least moronic in reducing such a fiercely integrated, well thought out production into something too casually dismissed as unworthy of their time. Such reviews are worthy of less than a yawn or a sneer, for they, ultimately tell us nothing than we could have gleaned on our own by the headline (which often they didn't write in the first place). This new 2 DVD set from London (attractively priced around $20-$30) is more than worth the price of admission and allows the home viewer a glimpse into what the controversy was all about (plus several interesting extras, including interviews with some of the cast, Mr. Carsen and an appreciation of Maestro Leppard by Ms. Haim).

So, is this new Poppea perfect? Nope, but that doesn't matter. Michael Levine’s set was, for the most part, little more than miles and miles of red velvet drapery, covering nearly every square inch of the stage – at times even the floor - grew a mite wearisome and unrelenting. Carsen’s usage of it seemed predicated on several “wow” type of special effects, but I think (strongly) that the “wow” factor could be achieved, even more so by relieving our eyes of his perpetual crimson tide. Having said that, nearly every other aspect of this show bordered on the revelatory (and so in hindsight my complaint of “seeing too much red” – is somehow soften or diffused), giving us lots of meat to chew on in a tale most of us think we know well.

In the title role, opera’s latest “It Girl,” Danielle de Niese came under much fire for less than glamorous vocalism. Personally, I found her Poppea to be so well thought out, so uniformly excellent and complete that any vocal shortcomings (e.g., a wispiness/breathiness in the lower range) excellently employed into her assumption of the aspiring empress. She breathes a certain life into this woman and becomes a Poppea that is, for all her manipulative ways and ambition, the most vulnerable creature of the opera – which is a first for me. By her coronation scene and the final duet, de Niese’s face and body language register a woman who has made a long journey mostly of her own devising – and yet who appears fraught with terror at what should happen next, leaving the audience (or at least me) sympathetic to her plight.

The performance of the night (next to Maestra Haim) belongs to Alice Coote. She (and Carsen) have saddled this Nerone with a dangerous edge I’ve never witnessed in a female Nero before . Only Richard Croft (in the excellent, if chopped up production for the 1993 Schwetzinger Festival) has the same swaggering menace and sense of complete abandon of morals or care. Coote goes him one better in her handling of the last scene with Druisilla and Ottone, which here in Carsen’s hands plays out with a near Shakespearean theatrical quality.

Coote makes a terrifying Nero: her eyes as shifty as a feral cat, her body language a nearly amorphous assumption of androgyny – alternating a faux butchness that belies her sex one moment, and then going all alpha male on us the next. Her turn as Nerone is so complete, so fully integrated into a wholly believable character that in many reviews her vocalism went nearly unmentioned. It should not as the evening’s highest vocal honors are all hers. The voice is an amazingly beautiful one with an evenness throughout the ranges – capable of sending out a barely audible “che . . . che” one minute and full-throated, glorious singing, employing all manner of vocal tricks and tossing off difficult coloratura as though it were nothing at all. This is a Nero both conceived and executed with brilliance and Coote is amply rewarded at her curtain.

Tenor Andrew Tortoise beautifully captures both Lucan’s infatuation and nervous misgiving of his leader. The love scene between the two – beginning with words celebrating Seneca’s death – offers some of the score’s most beautiful music. Carsen, however, has cooked up something new and grim for us here as homoeroticism turns terrifying and deadly, Nerone’s cronies drugging the poet, stripping him and placing him into a tub where he’s joined by Coote’s fully clothed, wild-eyed and insatiable Emperor. It all plays out with a graphic horror that had me squirming and barely able to watch – no longer fun or erotic but rather dangerous and threatening. Some (plenty actually) might (and will) object to such dramatic license – but I found it made for gripping, intense theatre.

Paolo Battaglia brings an oddly wooly – yet ultimately gorgeous sound, as well as a sincerity and nobility to Seneca and his scene with his disciples begging him to reconsider his suicide, makes for sensational, and gripping theatre. (I disagree with the decision, however, to have him die offstage.)

It’s tough to single out the “drag” performers here, but pride-of-place probably goes down to Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke’s delightfully absurd – and yet ultimately moving, Arnalta (also the only cast member to receive applause during the actual performance). Dominique Visse cannot be left out either, as his nurse/smartly turned out as more of a secretary/aide - provides genuine comic relief being both goofy and elegant.

Christophe Dumaux (who as Tolomeo stole every scene in the Giulio Cesare three years earlier) is less enthralling as Ottone, though his scene following Nero’s forgiveness is, fittingly, moving.

Tamara Mumford is given the thankless(?) task of turning Ottavia (usually the most sympathetic character in the opera) into a bitter, vengeful shrew. She does it well, though I felt the odd staging of the usually powerful “Addio Roma” (sung quietly in front of the slumbering Poppea and Nerone) shifted the drama in the wrong direction, ultimately reducing one of the opera’s most powerful scenes of conflict and emotion, to a mere “number.”

Marie Arnet shows off a voice of remarkable beauty (I kept thinking what a fine Poppea she might make herself) is radiant, racy and ultimately a most potent presence as Drusilla.

In an interesting stroke, Carsen has the drama play out all as a story told by Amore, who raises the curtains, turns out the lights, and essentially runs the show. He is delightfully played by Amy Freston in a (surprise) blood red suit, that makes her both cupid and devil – the perky soprano making the most of both.

When the production opened, I found I was rather amazed by how many critics complained about the pared down orchestration and openly pined for the days of Leppard’s “vulgar excesses” which once employed the whole of the London Philharmonic, several even calling the contributions of The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment “thin gruel” (or worse). I’ll take it both ways, thank you very much. Personally, I adored Maestro Leppard’s fleshing out of Monteverdi’s bare-as-bones scores, and it is to him we principally owe the debt of gratitude for resurrecting some of the earliest – and most important – contributions to the lyric stage. Nonetheless, for this production I found Emmanuelle Haim’s sparkling with a life and energy I don’t think I’ve ever before quite witnessed.

The vast array of sounds emanating from the pit were alternately spare and full, wistful and harrowing, and making some of Monteverdi’s strange harmonies sound so modern they could still be waiting for the ink to dry. Haim is absolutely in love with this score, and goes at it hammer and tongs, playing the harpsichord herself. She also has a little fun giving us her own fashion show, appearing in a different gown and hairstyle for each act.

All told, Carsen and his team give us a fresh, unflinching new look at one of opera’s oldest hits – and that is, in my opinion, always cause for celebration.

p.

"Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" Glyndebourne '73

This past week a DVD arrived of a performance I'd not seen in more than 25 years: the 1973 Peter Hall production of "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" from Glyndebourne with Dame Janet Baker and Benjamin Luxon. This is, of course, the much loathed, highly criticized realization by Raymond Leppard which sends purists running to the hills screaming "Blasphemy!" Too bad because it is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful scores I've ever heard.

I first fell in love with this version in the beautiful set from Columbia from 1978 with the incandescent Penelope of Frederica von Stade and the warm, masculine Ulisse of Richard Stilwell . . . one of his finest roles. (The cover of that set remains one of my favorites). I still own the LPs (but don't have a turntable . . . something I hope to remedy this summer), so have not listened in years to it. The first time I heard it, I played it all over again - and did so - or at least great chunks of it - every time I played it, and it is one of those performances I find snatches of playing in my head without prompting.

As soon the performance begain, my face lit up, the (then) new arrangement of centuries old music springing to life in orchestrations both lean and spare, the full batter of the London Philharmonic's strings sawing with life through those opening measures - it takes my breath away.

Sir Peter's direction is flawless here, surely one of his finest moments. The Prologue, with the completely naked Annabelle Hunt as L'Humana Fragilta alone on stage, her torments being issued forth from the gods, who all arrive descending from the heavens gets things off to a really good start (though I prefer the tradition of Human Frailty being performed by the same singer as Ulisse). As L'Humana Fragilta descends into ornate, raised stage floor via elevator, the stage goes dark, with only the gods being lit as they ascend back to the heavens, and when the lights dim back on, there stands the forlornly stoic queen Penelope, in one of those quiet miracles of theatre.

Dame Janet begins the great, long aria "Di Misera Regina" and oh, my . . . I'm lost. Wrapped in an enormous robe, her arms immobile as a statue. Her singing is of such delicate, exquisiteness, her pointing up of the text, wed to the emotions of the score is heartbreaking. By her first "Torna, torna" I could not keep my eyes from flooding. Slowly the stage becomes active with her court taking their places behind her. As the aria turns hopeful near its end, servants remove the robe and help Penelope into a stunningly simple baroque frock and Penelope softens both in voice and demeanor for the section beginning "Torna tranquila al mare." Then, that final whispered cry of "Torna, torna, o torna, torna Ulisse" as she plunges back into despair, oh my. I'm blathering here for there are no words to adequately describe how exquisite a performance Dame Janet turns in. Both she, and von Stade win the laurel wreath for this moment, yet to be unmatched by any other Penelope I've experienced in any edition.

Benjamin Luxon makes a most worthy partner, manly, tortured, ever projecting the great leader Ulisse, even when at his most vulnerable. When first getting to know this opera, I was always amazed at the great love story at its center - yet its two protagonists live almost separate arcs for hours until their touching reunion. The libretto is quite simply a masterpiece and a great example of converting a work of great literature into great stage drama.

For me, one of the chief glories of Leppard's adaptation is his unorthodox way, not only with the score, but of setting music to portions of the libretto for which no music has ever been found. The best example of this is in the scene between Telemaco and Penelope, ending with the Queen's aria "Debole fil di speme." No edition but Leppard's has this aria, and I remember being fascinated to find that Leppard himself wrote the aria, the melody based on one of Monteverdi's more obscure madrigals. No offense to Monteverdi, but this is, for me, one of the most beautiful moments in all of opera and authenticity be damned, it is a powerful, heart stopping moment as the Queen again softens and nervously, cautiously tries to believe her son is telling the truth, but she daren't hope so.

The staging and pacing of the final duet, for me, puts to shame every other production, and the simplicity of its ending, Penelope and Ulisse leaning their heads forward, barely touching each other as the lights dim after their final "Si, si mio core, si si, si si." finds me a blubbering wet mess from the sheer beauty of the moment. The Glyndebourne audience sits in rapt silence for about 11 seconds (yes, I counted) before cheering. They knew.

The choruses, the magnificent costumes, the baroque stage effects, the singing, the playing of all of those ancient instruments blending in seamlessly with a full modern symphony - all of it comes together for me in a way that few performances of this opera can or have so far.

Obsessor that I am, I ended up pulling out the other four DVDs of "Ulisse" and began watching them all, throughout the week, returning to the 73 Glyndebourne after certain scenes to compare, including Henze's wild ride with the score for the Salzburg Festival, with marvelous performances from Kathleen Kuhlmann and Thomas Allen in a truly spectacular staging.

The one that has always moved me the least is the Harnoncourt/Ponnelle film which, for my money, never quite gets anything "right" - though certain images are indeed beautiful, the sound never seems to be coming from the lip-synching singers, and its over done "high baroque" sets, costumes - and the most unsatisfactorily staged ending of ANY opera I've seen, is (for me) almost painful.

The Christie led performance from the Aix Festival runs a close second to the less authentically Monteverdian Glyndebourne with stunning performances and a fascinating staging by Adrian Noble.

The Zurich production - with Harnoncourt giving yet another revision to the score, is musically interesting, but I loathe the production which looks like a touring production of "Mama Mia" - and that butt ugly little Greek house with its human face of a window is simply ghastly. Vesselina Kasarova, a singer I like in many other roles, is just too bitter and bossy, and dark of tone to make me feel for her Penelope.

Though I've always longed for a video of von Stade and Stilwell in the Peter Hall production, I'll gladly make due with the old LP set (which I hope to transfer soon) and this beautiful, beautiful performance by Dame Janet and Benjamin Luxon. If you're a purist, you may find it deplorable, but if you just let it - you may be surprised at how this show can just take you away. It certainly did me.