Informed French opinion rates Penelope as a high point in the history of its native opera, not far behind Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande; but opportunities of seeing it on the stage are few and far between—there is, in any case, little action until the climactic ending when Ulysses triumphantly draws the great bow that had defeated the parasitic suitors, whom he drives out and slaughters—and so it is fortunate that this fine performance has reappeared. Penelope is essentially a lyrical work, though there are almost no arias as such; it employs Wagner's leitmotif technique (although in an individual way) but is not at all Wagnerian in idiom; it is basically intimate and restrained, though there are also powerful emotional scenes; and it was scored (most of it by Faure himself, though his responsibilities as director of the Conservatoire left him little time) for a large orchestra, but his interest lay in the musical substance rather than colourful timbre.
Jessye Norman is in splendid form, both regal and tender, as the patient wife who nightly unpicks her spinning in order to foil her suitors as she waits and waits for Ulysses to return; Alain Vanzo, that most intelligent French tenor, is a mellifluous Ulysses, even if he does sound too youthful and healthy to deceive his wife when he comes in disguised as a feeble old beggar; Jose van Dam is his usual admirable self, phrasing beautifully as the faithful shepherd Eumaeus; and Dutoit makes the Monte-Carlo orchestra glow. Some problems of variable levels noted in the LP set have not been corrected: the initial servants' chorus in Act 1 is still too faint, Ulysses's outburst at the end of Act 1 still over-powering; but these are minor flaws in a most welcome reissue. A special word is merited by Jean-Michel Nectoux's excellent long commentary.'