Three operas by Monteverdi have come down to us: “l’Orfeo”, “il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria” and “l’Incoronazione di Poppea”. The first was written in 1607, in Mantua, and the last two in Venice after 1640. In the thirtythree intervening years, the historical and musical transition from the renaissance to the baroque period took place. It is therefore not surprising that the differences between the first and the last two of Monteverdi’s operas are very great - they are in fact much greater that one would expect between works of the same category by one and the same composer.
“L`Orfeo", which counts as the first authentic opera, was written shortly after the invention of the dramatic recitative, which is identified musicologically with the invention of opera itself. In this work Monteverdi has combined the long established pastoral madrigals with the new recitative style into a remarkable formal mixture of the traditional and the modern; it was the beginning, and at the same time the first great culmination, of this new musical form. Here he could use the sumptuous renaissance orchestra of the “intermezzi” for the last time, thereby exactly stipulating many details, from the instrumentation right clown to the ornaments. As may be imagined, this left very little room for improvisation or any other freedom of interpretation.
Unfortunately, the dramatic works written by Monteverdi between L’Orfeo and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse are no longer in existence; only the “Lamento d’Ariana” (a short operatic scene which Monteverdi published in two different madrigal versions) and the short “Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda” give us some idea of the development of Monteverdi’s dramatic style. At the end of this continuous evolution stand the two later operas “Ulisse” and “Poppea”. Here, the concentrations of musical substance which, in “l`Orfeo”, were still in the madrigals, are dissolved or, rather, displaced. Monteverdi now desires to achieve the best possible effect of the words; the music may never draw the attention away from this, never be an end in itself; interpreting and moving the action forwards, it must underline and intensify the meaning of the words, so that the listener, without becoming aware of it, is reached on two different wavelengths as it were. Of course, there can be no arias or any other kind of self~contained musical pieces in these operas, as they would only disturb the main purpose - the optimum effect of the words.
"Il Ritorno d’Ulisse” is therefore very different from the musically rich madrigal opera “l’Orfeo”. The original sub-titles of the two works show this difference very clearly: “l’Orfeo” is termed “Favola in Musica” while “Ulisse” is called "Dramma in Musica". Our “music drama” is, however, just as far removed from "l’Orfeo" as from the baroque opera proper, which came into fashion soon after. In this, the individual singer was the attraction and the focal point; the words, the action became less and less important. This kind of baroque opera with its self-contained musical numbers and arias soon became a musical revue that cried out for reform.
It can therefore be seen that, from the dramatic point of view, “Ulisse” is not yet a true baroque opera. The Prologue, consisting of the 13th - 23rd cantos of the Odyssey, is also in renaissance character, not a classical heroic drama or ancient Roman theme as was popular in the high baroque period. Poet and composer have adhered to the original poem with almost pedantic accuracy. The personal characterization of the suitors and all other subsidiary figures has been taken over in the minutest detail. Since the educated public of that time knew every detail of this principal work of Greek poetry, Badoaro and Monteverdi could dispense with a dramatic development of tension and relaxation. They illustrated the well-known plot, as it were, and could thus also dispense with the one personal characterization or the other, since all the characters would anyway have been previously known and familiar to the listener.
As was the general practice at that time, the work is introduced by a symbolic Prologue: man is a frail toy in the hands of the three Fatal Powers: Time, Fortune and Love. The gods are also subjugated to these powers. The drama proper thus shows the human being as a toy at the mercy of the gods’ caprice, while the gods themselves are no more than immortal supermen at the mercy of the Fatal Powers.
The action thus takes place on three planes:
1. the Fatal Powers in the Prologue,
2. the Gods in their scenes of the first and last acts. (ln the first act Neptune will prevent Ulysses’s homecoming to punish him for blinding his son Polyphemus. In the last act Neptune lets himself be placated by the other gods, Ulysses may finally find rest and Penelope can recognize him.)
3. The action proper,
In addition to the clearly defined scenes on each of the three planes, there are three more points at which world of the gods and that of men come into conntact: when Minerva comforts and advises Ulysses, when she brings Telemachus from Sparta in her cloud chariot and when she encourages Ulysses on his return home and finally stands by him in his fight against the suitors.

Performance
The form in which Monteverdi’s late operas have come down to us presents an abundance of problems that confront the musicologist and the practical musician alike with almost impossible tasks. Every individual interpretation must therefore be regarded as an attempt at realizing one of many possibilities. A claim to definitiveness can never be made in this case, neither would it be the object of the exercise. Neither “Il Ritorno d’Ulisse” nor “l`lncoronazione di Poppea" has come down to us in Monteverdi’s manuscript, but in contemporary copies. What is more, we cannot speak of a full score in the normal sense: the entire work is written on two staves, one for the vocal parts, one for the bass. Only in a few ensembles, trios and duets nnd in the few brief instrumental pieces - in five parts in “Ulisse” - is the notation on three to five staves. The basses are only figured in exceptional cases, so that not even the harmony is clearly perceptible from the written notes. lt has to be deduced from the contemporary rules passed down to us in instructional works. How difficult that is, and how many different possibilities of harmonization Monteverdi himself saw, can be studied in some of his other works, such as the two versions of the two versions of the Lamento d'Ariana or the two versions of the instrumental movements in “Poppea”, which has come down to us in a Venetian and a Neapolitan copy of the same work. The bass is the same in both versions, but one is in three parts and the other in four, the realization of the harmony being completely different.
But there are more than enough problems quite apart from the harmony: for instance, whether the preserved “scores” represent parts for the conductor that need to be supplemented, or whether they contain the complete work as it is ti be performed, in other words, whether they are only a frameworks, a skeleton that first has to be clothed with flesh in order to be complete, or whether they are already complete in this form. It is obvious that there is wide scope here for alll kinds of doctrines, and today we can already fin the musical fruits of each  of these doctrines somewhere, The extreme possibilities are:
1. to perform the entire work only with hnrpsichord, letting the ritornelli be played by a string quintet;
2. to orchestrate the entire work, thus filling the space between the bass and the upper part with an orchestral tecture.
The second possibility, of course, offers an endless variety of solutions with the styles of orchestration of the 17th to the 20th centuries. All other possibilities, including that chosen in this recording, lie somewhere between these two extremes.
It is posssible to find some indications of the instrumentation in the manuscripts: notes like “tutti gli stromenti” or “Violini” or “Ritornello”. Occasionally instrumental movements too have only the uppermost part, or even the bass, given in the “score”; the other parts must be added. There are also other Venetian opera scores written shortly after “Ulisse” or “Poppea” which contain even clearer indications of the addition of supplementary parts, some lines between the vocal and bass parts being left empty in certain places. It is not possible to state here all the reasons that speak for and against an instrumentation; we are convinced that Monteverdi took it for granted, at least for certain performances. The decisive question is, then, in which passages instruments should be used, and which should he accompanied by continuo only. Are there musical criteria according to which these passages can be distinguished from one another? The vocal parts and the bass have been set in two different, clearly recognizable ways, which can be called “recitative-like” and "arioso”. These two different modes of writing - beside the already mentioned notes in the manuscripts and the lines left empty in the other opera scores following the same principle - give us the formal scheme according to which the instrumentation ist to be worked out. (A particularly fine example of this arioso/recitative alternation determining the instrumentation is provided by Penelope’s first monologue. Here the thrice repeated “torna, torna, deh torna Ulisse" and “torna il tranquillo al mare” stands out in arioso style from the big recitative.)
The instruments used here are those which were in general use in ltaly at that time: above all string instruments of the violin family (also a viola da gamba for the continuo), four recorders for gentle and brilliant scenes, two piffari and a dulcian for pastoral and comic scenes, three trombones for accompanying Neptune and other passages where gravity is called for, and a trumpet in C and D, which was obligatory at that time for appearances of the gods.
These melodic instruments, which are also given solo passages in places, are joined by an abundance of continuo instruments: a large Italian harpsichord as the main instrument, a small virginal for accompanying the recitatives of Melanto, Eurimaco and Anfinomo, two lutes and a chitarrone for the tutti continuo and for accompanying the songs of Melanto, Eurimaco and Anfinomo, also in combination with the organ for accompanying the recitatives of Ulisse, Telemaco and Ericlea, a harp mainly for accompanying Penelope, but occasionally for Ulisse too, organ for the gods’ scenes, Telemaco, at times also Eumete and in the tutti, and a regal for Neptun, Antinoo and the comical passages of Iro.
The musical text follows in principle the original manuscript preserved in the National Library, Vienna. Likewise the literary text. Obvious mistakes have been corrected without further comment.
In this recording, which was made in conjunction with a stage performance, we have attempted to make the stage action clear on the record. The positions of the characters follow a certain stage production pattern, so that Penelope for instance - as a symbol of constancy - is always on the left-hand side of the stage while her adversaries, the suitors, are always on the right. The coming and going of the various characters is only suggested, except when Minerva and Telemaco approach from the distance, hovering in the cloud chariot. Movement on the stage has also been recorded, e. g. when the unhappy Iro runs to and fro between the scatterred bodies of the suitors.
The accompanying orchestra has been recorded in a seating arrangement that remains constant; the instruments that accompany in each case can thus always be easily localized.
In our recording of “Ulisse” we have employed in principle only such possibilities as were usual in Monteverdi’s time. Even peculiar sound effects as in the case of Neptune were known (singing through megaphones or in echo chambers) and used to dramatic purpose, just as were all kinds of stage machinery.
It has not been our intention to present a definitive version with this recording.
We know that there are infinite possibilities for the performance of this work: some which are sure to be bad, and many that are good and right.