Shakespeare In Patria Monteverdi Analysis

As a composer in Renaissance Venice, Monteverdi was familiar with the ideas of The Accademia Degli Incogniti. This was a group of influential thinkers, writers and other aristocrats, whose principal philosophy based on debates and looking at the issues of politics, beauty and also love from different points of view. They valued the multiplicity of interpretations, which also influenced Giacomo Badoaro and Giovanni Francesco Busenello, who wrote the librettos for Monteverdi’s operas Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea. The ideas of the Accademia thus also reached Monteverdi, who tried to depict the different views on love in these two operas through his innovative musical language and with the help of the emerging genre …show more content…
This is presented through most of the opera through her laments. The opera thus opens with Penelope’s lament in Scene I from Act I, which sets her mood for most of the opera. She is signing about how she is “condemned to sorrow” in bar 5. She is spending her days in grief and crying after Ulisse’s absence. She is in love, but because her loved one is not by her side, she is experiencing the negative, painful side of love. Her pain is to be resolved only when Ulisse returns at the end of the opera. Monteverdi captured Penelope’s pain very skilfully with music. Firstly, we have to consider her vocal range. It is very restricted, mostly moving around two or three notes. This introduces a rigorous recitative style. She is repeating the words on the same pitch and thus emphasising her love driven agony. Moreover, the melodic line is in a quite low position, barely moving upwards and mostly linear, which illustrates her sadness and frustration. The use of dissonance also bears an important meaning to the recitative. It coincides with the words “dolenti” in bar 9, which means “painful” and furthermore, in bars 12 and 13, we can identify three descending dissonances, which all emphasise the word “mai” (“grief”). They even repeat three times in a row. Moreover, Monteverdi also used harmony in order to depict Penelope’s sorrow. She starts her recitative in c minor, which already indicates a gloomier, sadder tone. Furthermore, by her constant use of cadences, she frequently changes the harmonies, which illustrates her instability and uncertainty. The rhythm also contributes to the recitative style. The excerpt is written mostly in binary metre, which indicates her pain and sorrow and gives her even more power to express