My Ulysses in music, driven by a curiosity to hear the song of the sirens

Last November, together with Fondazione Musica per Roma, we decided to revive the production “Viaggi di Ulisse”, a show I wrote and directed in 2011 for the Ravenna Festival. We are reviving it for a short tour in Crete, Monopoli, Ravenna and Rome. When this decision was made, The Odyssey was not yet in vogue; the myth of Ulysses has only now come into fashion thanks to Christopher Nolan’s sumptuous and beautiful film released this summer. But in reality, to say that Ulysses is in vogue is an understatement: fashion, by definition, is fleeting and ephemeral. Ulysses is a figure known and loved for well over two millennia, across the globe. He is a figure who has inspired numerous musicians: from Monteverdi to Scarlatti, from Dallapiccola to Lucio Dalla.

Ulysses is a character of many facets. Homer calls him ‘Politropos’, ‘of many wiles’ according to Pindemonte’s famous translation. Ulysses is a hero and, at the same time, a deserter who tries to avoid conscription into the army by feigning madness. Ulysses is the patriarch of the household, devoted to his wife Penelope, his son Telemachus and his dog Argo. At the same time, he is also the traveller who nurtures his thirst for knowledge of mankind. And of women, for in his wanderings he certainly does not shy away from amorous escapades.

Ulysses is also an archetypal figure of humanistic consciousness. Book IX of the Odyssey contains the marvellous episode of the island of the Lotophagi – the lotus-eaters. The lotus mentioned in the Odyssey is a plant that makes people happy, harmless and cheerful. The modern-day equivalent of this herb is not difficult to identify. Ulysses’ sailors, who had gone ashore to explore the island of the Lotophagi, are welcomed by the peaceful natives who give them lotus leaves to chew. As they chew and chew, the sailors become intoxicated, dazed and feel happy because they lose their memory: Ithaca, their homeland, and their native tongue are erased; even their travelling companions left behind on the ship are forgotten. Odysseus, faced with the sight of his happy and forgetful companions, reacts violently: he forces them back onto the ship and compels them to resume their journey. ‘Let no one ever forget the past, their homeland and their native tongue!’ Reading this dazzling episode years ago filled me with passion; it made me fall so deeply in love with Odysseus that I wanted to turn him into a musical work. I confided in my friend Milo Manara, and we found ourselves very much on the same wavelength in choosing the virtue we most admire in ‘our’ Ulysses: curiosity. He risks his life not only to survive, but also driven by a curiosity to hear the song of the sirens, to see a cyclops up close, or to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules. In the illustrations drawn by Manara, Ulysses has the gaze of Pierpaolo Pasolini, the great Ulysses of the twentieth century. Subsequently, with video contributions from seven leading actors, I produced Viaggi di Ulisse, the show that will return to the stage in December after a brief hiatus.