Claudio Monteverdi, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, ed. Alan Curtis.

Abstract

Alan Curtis's edition of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria appears thirteen years after his edition of L’incoronazione di Poppea. It is with the aim of providing a companion to the latter that the Ulisse edition is offered; but as Curtis himself writes in the foreword, quoting Norbert Dubowy, the main intention of the edition is also to fill the void caused by the fact that ‘since the publications of [Robert] Haas, not a single serious attempt at a philological investigation [of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria] has been undertaken and that until the present day no critical edition of either text or music is available’ (p. vii). The situation is also clearly expressed in Tim Carter's words: ‘The uncertain provenance [of the only surviving score] has caused scant musicological anxiety. Nor have the surviving copies of Giacomo Badoaro's libretto, with their divergent readings, excited much published comment. Moreover, the supposed ‘moral’ of the work … seems both unproblematic and conventional. On the whole, Il ritorno is widely touted as a straightforward opera with a straightforward message’ (Tim Carter, Monteverdi's Musical Theatre (New Haven and London, 2002), 237).