Time,fate, and amor, love, are making life a misery for the ageing, loving, suffering human being.

For twenty years, Penelope has been waiting for her beloved Odysseus to finally return from the war against Troy. All those around her no longer believe that this will happen, yet Penelope remains steadfast in her love.
After 20years of war and the despairing search for the lost Arcadia of his erstwhile home, Odysseus has finally reached his native shores. A youth reveals himself to him as the Goddess Minerva, and advises him not to make himself known for the time being. Odysseus heeds her advice. His loyal shepherd Eumaeus also fails to recognise the aged hero, but is nevertheless pleased when told by him that Odysseus will soon return home. Only to his son Telemachus does Odysseus reveal his identity.

Penelope's servant Melanto is enjoying the pleasures of young love together with Eurymachus, and urges Penelope to begin a new life at the side of a new husband. Yet Penelope stubbornly refuses her suitors, Pisandro, Amphinomus, and Antinous. The message delivered by Eumaeus that Odysseus will soon be returning creates panic among the suitors. Eumaeus leads the as yet unrecognised Odysseus to Penelope's court. The suitors, and above all the gluttonous parasite Irus, insult the unknown old man. To everyone's astonishment, Odysseus defeats the boastful Irus in a short fight. In order to put an end to the overbearing attentions of her suitors, Penelope gives orders for Odysseus's bow to be brought to her. The person who shoots the best with it will win Penelope's hand in marriage. However, not one of the suitors can manage even to draw the bow. Odysseus draws the bow with ease and kills all three suitors.

Irus bemoans the loss of his three benefactors. The servant Eurycleia has recognised Odysseus and torments herself with the question as to whether or not she should reveal his identity to Penelope. Penelope still does not recognise her longed-for husband, marked as he is by war and hardships. The coming-together of these two estranged spouses becomes a final test of love.

3 operas – 12 hours – 1 spectacle
 
For the first time, all three of Claudio Monteverdi's existing completed operas will be performed not just as a trilogy, but also on one single day. To mark the beginning of his tenure as Theatre Manager, Barrie Kosky will be producing twelve hours of musical theatre with nearly 200 participating artists.

Monteverdi's operas are rightly classed as the first masterpieces in the history of opera. Like a strand of operatic DNA, they contain within them everything that would come to shape the next 400 years of opera history to the present day. Using as a basis Monteverdi's musical material, which contains barely any indications for an actual orchestration, the Tashkent-born, internationally successful composer Elena Kats-Chernin has given the three operas a new and highly individual instrumentation. As Monteverdi did in his time, Elena Kats-Chernin makes her own exceedingly lively use of various traditions, with whose help she also manages to integrate into her style such popular musical influences as jazz, klezmer, tango, and ragtime. Thus her interpretations of Monteverdi's operas feature not only the tradi­tional instruments of a modern opera orchestra, but also exotic instruments from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and West Africa.

At the centre of each of the three operas are two lovers whose love for one another could not be any more diffe­rent: the youthful and passionate love between Orpheus and Eurydice is contrasted with the detached longing for one another of Odysseus and Penelope, the married couple separated for many years, whereas in the charged eroticism between Nero and Poppea, ambition and sexual obsession are inseparably linked.  The trilogy is opened by none other than Cupid, the god of love himself, to take us on a journey through the heights and depths of love …