When Odysseus returns to his Greek homeland of Ithaca after nearly twenty years of war and wandering, neither his homeland nor he are the same.

And that's not all: the Homeric epic ends with the arrival, but also with the indication that Odysseus must set off again the next day, and indeed to the farthest reaches of the land, as was prophesied to him in the underworld.

The only evening, however, is stretched out in time, because the goddess Athena blocks the sun - the lovers Odysseus and Penelope experience an endless night, which to a certain extent compensates for Penelope's decades of waiting.

Anyone who ignores this complexity can turn the story into either a mythological travel drama or a classic love story: Reinhard Keizer (1674 to 1739), who lived in Hamburg, did the latter, putting Circe, another vengeful rival, on the scene and packaging everything for the Danish King Frederick IV .and his wife Anna Sophie von Reventlow in the festively representative homage opera "Ulysses", which was first performed on the Copenhagen stage in November 1722.

The text was provided by Friedrich Maximilian von Lersner, who used a French template.

Perfect for Advent

As the winter opera of the Baroque Festival and in the enchanting Rococo Theater in Schwetzingen, the piece is the perfect Advent heart warmer.

It was edited for the premiere, not only to replace lost arias, but also to subject it to a dramaturgical modernization logic.

Although the text and score have been handed down and edited, the musical director Clemens Flick decided on some massive interventions that have at most the second part of the word in common with a "reconstruction".

Ironically, the potpourri overture of Keiser's instrumental works fits the plot as a musical wandering around.

You can also come to terms with the addition of Circe's outburst of anger in the first act.

The fact that Ulysses' fight with the suitor Urilas is shifted to the subconscious and fought as a duet in front of the mirror,

In Schwetzingen, home is a pub, known as "Bar Ithaca", a waiting room that has fallen out of time, where you can sip Greek wine melancholically and listen to the evening's musical discovery with Theresa Immerz as Cephalia at the bar.

The entrance and exit of the pub visitors is done via the ladies' and gents' toilets, the marked kitchen remains cold.

There is probably a lack of qualified staff.

The typical single drinker hangs around at the bar, he too is forced to wait: Penelope's suitor Urilas (Andrew Nolen), who looks deep into his glass as if there were more to be found there than the drink of oblivion.

The bar slut Circe (Dora Pavlíková) dances around those who remain seated, her glittering hip movement fits the metallic soprano voice: she is the real foreign body, too dressed up for the provincial pub.

This has to go wrong, the viewer suspects,

even without being constantly informed by the narrator Homer (Klaus Brantzen).

He sits, as the director (Nicola Raab) devised, at a bar corner table and downs one beer after the next behind the shaggy bandage while he explains the odyssey he is pretending to be writing like an avuncle.

It comes as it must: Ulysses goes to get cigarettes and stays away.

The touchingly aged Penelope (Jutta Böhnert) consoles herself with a shaky nightingale aria, time collapses.

Momentum only arises when Urilas pulls himself together and, enchanted by Circe, surprisingly kisses Penelope and she successfully defends herself: The schemers Circe and Urilas then really get going in the anger duet "Auff, auff zur Rache", the daughters of the night (Manuela Sonntag and Elena Trobisch) rise from the depths and let the coloratura crackle.

Here at the latest, the North German cool Gänsemarkt opera should have raged.

In the second act, the returnees Ulysses (Henryk Böhm) and Eurilochus (João Terleira) increase the vocal level considerably: this is how baroque opera should sound, soft, vulnerable, full of silvery arabesques.

In the end, of course, love wins the race.

The duet of the lovers Eurilochus and Cephalia "Most beautiful angel, worth life" is also a highlight in the sensitively acting orchestra.

Here at the latest, Keizer's music turns out to be part of a European family of sounds in which Handel, Purcell and Telemann form a melodic community from which family silver is borrowed.

The pub almost begins to fly, if it weren't for Homer, who in all seriousness pulls out a sailor's piano and sings a sea shanty.

It doesn't need this Nordic cliché, it's enough to trust in legendary North German music,

little sun, but once it shines, it's more beautiful than anywhere else in the world.

Even in winter.