Orpheus in Venice: Prologue ; A new Ulysses ; The myth of Venice -- Discoveries and Reception: Scholarship ; Performance -- Sources and Authenticity: Three librettos: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria ; Le nozze d'Enea e Lavinia ; L'incoronazione di Poppea -- Two Scores: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria L'incoronazione di Poppea -- Ancients and Moderns: A question of genre ; Five acts or three ; Modern taste -- A Master of Three Servants: Monteverdi's way with words ; Speech and song, recitative and aria ; The role of meter ; Fashioning the just lament : Arianna's Venetian progeny ; Comedy -- Constructions of Character: Shaping an epic or rewriting Penelope ; The wily hero ; Deepening a psychological drama -- The Philosopher and the Parasite: Heroic pedant, ambiguous philosopher ; Tragic buffoon ; Critics and directors ; Music and text ; Post mortem -- Epilogue -- APPENDICES: 1. Giacomo Badoaro, Il ritorno d'Ulisse, preface ; 2. Argomento et scenario delle Nozze d'Enea in Lavinia 3. Giacomo Badoaro, Ulisse errante, preface ; 4. L'incoronazione di Poppea : argomento, scenario, preface ; 5. Il ritorno d'Ulisse : Badoaro's argomento compared with Dolce's Allegorie and Dolce's argomenti compared with Badoaro's structure ; 6. Le nozze d'Enea e Lavinia : scenario compared with Dolce's allegories ; 7. Supernatural scenes ; 8. Singers

This innovative study examines the composer's celebrated final works - Il ritorno d'Ulisse (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642) - from a new perspective. Ellen Rosand considers these works as not merely a pair but constituents of a trio, a Venetian trilogy that, Rosand argues, properly includes a third opera, Le nozze d'Enea (1641). Although its music has not survived, its chronological placement between the other two operas opens new prospects for better understanding all three, both in their specifically Venetian context and as the creations of an old master. A thorough review of manuscript and printed sources of Ritorno and Poppea, in conjunction with those of their erstwhile silent companion, offers new possibilities for resolving the questions of authenticity that have swirled around Monteverdi's last operas since their discovery in the late nineteenth century. Le nozze d'Enea also helps to explain the striking differences between the other two, casting new light on their contrasting moral ethos: the conflict between a world of emotional propriety and restraint and one of hedonistic abandon