Penelope

In the organizer's words:

Chamber opera by Sarah Kirkland Snider
Libretto by the composer and Ellen McLaughlin
For ages 14 and up

Homer rarely lets Penelope speak for herself in his Odyssey; instead, she, her fate and her suffering are spoken about - by her son, her suitors and her servants. Now it is time for the tide to turn: US composer Sarah Kirkland Snider has been named one of the "Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music" by the Washington Post. She subverts the boundaries of classical music and radically tells the story of Homer's hero Odysseus from a new, feminist perspective in the electro-acoustic chamber opera Penelope - combining the mythological material with contemporary questions about war, trauma, identity and memory. In this dreamlike, lyrical monodrama between art song, post-rock and electronic music, the Anglo-French mezzo-soprano Emilie Renard embodies a Penelope who moves beyond traditional clichés.