Review: ULYSSES' HOMECOMING, Hackney Empire, 15 October 2016

Monteverdi was an old man and had been away from "showbiz" for years when he wrote Ulysses' Homecoming, the opera about an ageing hero returning to his first love and proving himself the equal, indeed the better, of his rivals. It must have felt good when audiences gave him a vote of confidence in 1640, inspiring him to write L'incoronazione di Poppea in the short years left to him, cementing his reputation forever.

English Touring Opera's production starts and finishes with extraordinary scenes that speak first to humanity as a whole and then to its smallest sustainable unit: the couple. In the prologue, Human Frailty is caught in a fishing net proclaiming his weakness (in Clint van der Linde's extraordinary countertenor) while, up above on a stripped-back set, Time, Fortune and Love revel in their power, explaining how they can pull Frailty one way or another at will. Come the final scene, Ulysses is, after various misadventures and disguised as a poor beggar, reunited with his faithful wife, Penelope, and their love is affirmed again in what on Broadway would be called, with full justice, the 11 o'clock number.

Between times, gods have intervened in the Fates of Man, Penelope has been counselled to seek a new love as her youthful looks fade and three suitors have been chased out of the home by Ulysses (with a bit of help from the gods). Truth be told, though the music is never less than suffused with emotions and played with skill, it all takes rather longer than 21st-century tastes are used to, the pace dragging a little, particularly in the long first half.

Benedict Nelson's Ulysses is never quite broken - even when bent, begging and be-hooded, there is a regal dimension to him, through voice and confidence. He is watched over by Minerva, a Puckish portrayal by Katie Bray as the goddess of cunning. But the most compelling figure is the one left behind when Ulysses went to Troy and didn't come back - Penelope. Carolyn Dobbin still has plenty of the allure that won the youthful Ulysses and a stillness that allows her to see through the bluster of the suitors and the will that allows her to insist on rejecting them. Dobbin's singing has plenty of sadness in it, but steel too - and she wins out with the result she wanted.

There are no special effects in this production, just a few thunderclaps as the gods clear their throats, and no tricksy resetting of the scenes to make points about today's politics (party or gender), concentrating the story even more on the human frailties we had been invited to consider in the prologue - and thanks to the full surtitles, we didn't miss a word. That can make the evening feel more like one for connoisseurs rather than tyro opera-goers, so, even if I felt like it needed to lose 30 minutes in the first half, my fellows in the dress circle cheered and stood at the curtain, their delight visible to all, the impact of it on the exhausted cast evident too. All that timeless emotion from 376 years ago had been lain before us and they (and me to some extent) had lapped it up like ambrosia.

Ulysses' Homecoming continues as part of the ETO Autumn Season.

Photo Jane Hobson.

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