Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (SV 325, The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland) is an opera consisting of a prologue and five acts (later revised to three), set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro.

After his long journey home from the Trojan Wars Ulisse, king of Ithaca, finally returns to his kingdom where he finds that a trio of villainous suitors are importuning his faithful queen, Penelope.

Its music, while showing the influence of earlier works, also demonstrates Monteverdi's development as a composer of opera, through his use of fashionable forms such as arioso, duet and ensemble alongside the older-style recitative.

Il ritorno has been described as an "ugly duckling", and conversely as the most tender and moving of Monteverdi's surviving operas, one which although it might disappoint initially, will on subsequent hearings reveal a vocal style of extraordinary eloquence.

[1] After falling out with Vincenzo's successor, Duke Francesco Gonzaga, Monteverdi moved to Venice in 1613 and became director of music at St Mark's Basilica, a position he held for the rest of his life.

In rapid succession three more opera houses opened in the city, as the ruling families of the Republic sought to express their wealth and status by investing in the new musical fashion.

"[6] This remark proved prescient; Monteverdi's first public contribution to Venetian opera came in the 1639–40 carnival season, a revival of his L'Arianna at the Teatro San Moisè.

[11] The text of Il ritorno, originally written in five acts but later reorganised as three, is a generally faithful adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, Books 13–23, with some characterisations altered or expanded.

[12] The libretto was written with the express purpose of tempting Monteverdi to enter the world of Venetian opera, and it evidently captured the elderly composer's imagination.

[20] Apart from the stylistic differences between Il ritorno and Monteverdi's other surviving late opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea, the main issue which raised doubts was the series of discrepancies between the score and the libretto.

[22] A 1644 letter from Badoaro to Michelangelo Torcigliani contains the statement "Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria was embellished with the music of Claudio Monteverdi, a man of great fame and enduring name".

English translations used in the synopsis are from Geoffrey Dunn's version, based on Raymond Leppard's 1971 edition,[28] and from Hugh Ward-Perkins's interpretation issued with Sergio Vartolo's 2006 recording for Brilliant Classics.

The spirit of human frailty (l'humana Fragilità) is mocked in turn by the gods of time (il Tempo), fortune (la Fortuna) and love (l'Amore).

"[n 9] From the goddess Minerva, who appears disguised as a shepherd boy, Ulisse learns that he is in Ithaca, and is told of "the unchanging constancy of the chaste Penelope",[n 10] in the face of the persistent importunings of her evil suitors.

This view is supported by a study of the performance schedules for other Venice operas, and by the knowledge that the Manelli company had severed its connection with the Teatro Cassiano before the 1639–40 season.

[33] The Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo, owned by the Grimani family, would also be the venue for the premières of Monteverdi's Le nozze d'Enea and Poppea.

[34] In terms of its staging Il ritorno is, says Carter, fairly undemanding, requiring three basic sets—a palace, a seascape and a woodland scene—which were more or less standard for early Venetian opera.

It did, however, demand some spectacular special effects: the Phaecian ship turns to stone, an airborne chariot transports Minerva, a bolt of fire transforms Ulisse.

[42] In January 1974 Il ritorno received its United States première with a production mounted by the Opera Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, on the basis of the Harnoncourt edition.

[43][44] Led by conductor Alexander Gibson, the cast included Frederica von Stade as L'humana Fragilità and Penelope, Claude Corbeil as Il Tempo and Antinoo, Joyce Castle as La Fortuna, Barbara Hocher as Amore and Melanto, Richard Stilwell as Ulisse, Donald Gramm as Nettuno, William Neill as Giove, Carmen Balthrop as Minerva, David Lloyd as Eumete, R. G. Webb as Iro, Howard Hensel as Eurimaco, Paul Sperry as Telemaco, Dennis Striny as Pisandro, and John Lankston as Anfinomo.

[45] A 2006 Welsh National Opera production by David Alden, designed by Ian McNeil, featured neon signs, stuffed cats, a Neptune in flippers and a wet suit, Minerva in the form of the aviator Amelia Earhart, and Jupiter as a small-time hustler, an interpretation defended by the critic Anna Picard – "the gods were always contemporary fantasies, while an abandoned wife and a humbled hero are eternals.

"[51] A few years later, Jeremy Noble in a Gramophone review wrote that Il ritorno was the least known and least performed of Monteverdi's operas, "quite frankly, because its music is not so consistently full of character and imagination as that of Orfeo or Poppea.

[53] Later analysts have been more positive; to Mark Ringer Il ritorno is "the most tender and moving of Monteverdi's operas",[54] while in Ellen Rosand's view the composer's ability to portray real human beings through music finds its fullest realisation here, and in Poppea a few years later.

Speech, usually in the form of recitative, delivers information and moves the action forward, while musical utterances, either formal songs or occasional short outbursts, are lyrical passages that enhance an emotional or dramatic situation.

[59] This division is, however, less formal than in Monteverdi's earlier L'Orfeo; in Il ritorno information is frequently conveyed through the use of arioso, or even aria at times, increasing both tunefulness and tonal unity.

[12] According to the reviewer Iain Fenlon, "it is Monteverdi's mellifluous and flexible recitative style, capable of easy movement between declamation and arioso, which remains in the memory as the dominant language of the work.

"[60] Monteverdi's ability to combine fashionable forms such as the chamber duet and ensembles with the older-style recitative from earlier in the century further illustrate the development of the composer's dramatic style.

[47][50] Monteverdi's trademark feature of "stilo concitato" (rapid repetition of notes to suggest dramatic action or excitement) is deployed to good effect in the fight scene between Ulisse and Iro, and in the slaying of the suitors.

[60] Jacobs's version is in the original five-act form, and uses music by Luigi Rossi and Giulio Caccini for some choruses which appear in the libretto but which are missing from Monteverdi's score.

While the quality of the vocal contributions were praised, Harnoncourt's "big-band score" and bold instrumentation were highlighted by Gramophone critic Jonathan Freeman-Attwood as a likely source of future debate.