AllMovie

16th and 17th Century composer Claudio Monteverdi adapted his mammoth opera Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda from twelve strokes in an epic cycle by the eminent Torquato Tasso, authored in 1575; both works relay the tale of Tancred, a Christian knight en route to the Holy Land, who engages in a battle with a masked infidel and kills this individual - little realizing, until it is too late, that this is the woman he loves. As directed by François Caillat, this particular stage production constitutes not a full version of Monteverdi's complete opera, but a loose and dramatically shortened adaptation of that work, focusing on Tancred's journey back to Europe after the fateful duel, in which he relives the experience in his mind - on board a ship, at night. Philippe Bardy stars as Tancredi, with Philippe Huttenlocher as Testo and Serge Merlin as The Old Sailor. The Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble lends added musical accompaniment.