Lossless is available in FLAC and ALAC (For Mac). You select on the download page.
When you purchase a lossless format, we include the MP3 free of charge
Please note: On Mp3 format an unavoidable click may be heard on segue track breaks, to avoid this issue please select lossless
This item is temporarily unavailable.
Why not buy the whole Album?
Your selections total more than the whole disc price.
Notes
Monteverdi’s great opera is a celebration of unwavering devotion, conveyed in some of the composer’s most poignant, heart-breaking music.
After two brutal decades of war, the weary Ulysses is washed up on the rocky shore of his home island of Ithaca. There, he discovers the hordes of depraved admirers who have beseiged his faithful wife Penelope in his 20-year absence – and launches into battle to win back her love. Monteverdi’s opera is a celebration of unwavering devotion, conveyed in some of the composer’s most poignant, heartbreaking music.
John Eliot Gardiner leads an exemplary cast of world-class singers alongside the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in this live recording from The National Forum of Music in Wroclaw, Poland – part of their critically acclaimed Monteverdi 450 tour in 2017.
Please login to post a review
Reviews
“…This is a beautifully performed, recorded and presented production of one of Monteverdi’s final masterpieces, and I look forward to revisiting it on many occasions. I wonder if Gardiner will now be persuaded to re-record the other two surviving operas. It would be fascinating to hear on disc the fresh insights the passing years will surely have afforded him.”
Richard Hanlon – MusicWeb-International.com – 21 March 2019
***** (Exceptional)
Jeremie Bigorie – Classica magazine (France) – March 2019
Recommended
“… I always find him [Gardiner] a wonderfully inspirational conductor and here he elicits from the orchestral players a sensitivity to the text in terms of nuance and inflection. I particularly liked his hand-picked soloists. I would single out Furio Zanasi as an excellent Ulysses, noble yet world-weary. Lucile Richardot similarly impresses, successful in bringing both warmth and drama to the part. Krystian Adam as Ulysses' son Telemachus brings sufficient vitality to his role. The opera is superbly recorded, and the engineers have achieved an admirable balance between soloists, choir and instrumental players. This is music-making of the highest order.”
Stephen Greenbank – MusicWeb-International.com – 12 February 2019
“… The current performance had minimal staging, with the singers able to move around in front of orchestra and chorus, and this immediacy and freedom comes across in spades – the whole performance is also given real drive by the compact and light-footed continuo group. The cast is, of, first-rate, and produces outstanding performances …”
Adrian Horsewood – Classical Music magazine – February 2019
“… This is a masterful realization of the work, with Gardiner, his choir and orchestra attuned to its pageantry, drama and sheer beauty, as well as Monteverdi’s sudden shifts through a broad emotional range. In the first act, the orchestra caresses and supports the sorrowful Penelope; the second concludes with rising battle music; and in the third the choirs of Heaven and Sea are graced with the elemental clarity and grace of Monteverdi’s madrigals. Il ritorno is a key document in opera’s early history, with an increasing shift from intoned text to dramatic song: Gardiner and company’s performance is both vigorous and authentic.”
Stuart Broomer - thewholenote.com - 29 January 2019
Recording of the Month
"... this account (recorded live towards the end of the tour in Wroclaw) has an appealing energy and ease. recitatives flicker and spark with detail, the repartee of the court, the blandishments of the young lovers, the pronouncements of the gods and the halting reconciliation between husband and wife each coloured distinctly. Instrumental textures are spare and speeds swift, and there's a welcome sense of narrative drive through a story that lacks the easy sensation of Poppea or the episodic structure of Orfeo..."
Alexandra Coghlan - Gramophone magazine - January 2019
“Gardiner’s ‘Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria’ is a very refined and noble version of Monteverdi’s composition…” ***
Alain Steffen – Pizzicato magazine.lu – 21 December 2018
Performance **** Recording ****
"... In incandescent performances, the artists turn the opera's challenges into strengths..."
Berta Joncus - Gramophone magazine - January 2019
“… with such vivid sound, it’s arguably as satisfying a version of Monteverdi’s penultimate masterpiece as any available on disc.”
Andrew Clements - The Guardian - 16 November 2018
Media Downloads
Whenever possible we provide a high resolution CD cover image and a PDF version of the CD booklet for you to download and keep
My Wish List
