BY MARION LIGNANA ROSENBERG [Newsday, 9 November 2007]

Opera teems with women who wait: Puccini's Madame Butterfly, for example, who waits in vain for the caddish Lieutenant Pinkerton to return to her. One of the earliest operas, Monteverdi's "Return of Ulysses," depicts the faithful Penelope at the end of a 20-year wait for her man. Wily and skeptical, she demands hard proof of her husband's identity before welcoming him back to their home and bed.