About the event:

The Odyssey: based on the acclaimed translation by Emily Wilson, music by Tom Smail and direction and design by Isabella Bywater.

The evening will consist of music and discussion:

A fifteen minute scaled-down "taster" of the opera, with six musicians and four singers;

And a panel discussion – Homer, The Odyssey, the new opera, the role of classics and opera in our time – moderated by classicist and poet, Alicia Stallings, featuring the composer, the translator, and the director/designer.

 

About the speakers:

Tom Smail is a composer of contemporary classical music in all its forms: chamber, orchestral, vocal, choral and opera. His most recent opera, Blue Electric, played to sold-out houses and critical acclaim in London in 2020. In autumn 2024 he had two major concerts in Athens: the first as part of of celebration of Philhellenism at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the second, featuring two world premieres, at the Benaki Museum’s Pireos 138. November 2024 saw the premiere of his second String Quartet, with the Carducci, at Hellens in Herefordshire. "One of the most fascinating and lyrical composers of his generation" wrote the Sunday Times. "Stylish, confident, complete" wrote the Telegraph. "Tom Smail is an extraordinarily gifted composer," said English Touring Opera, who have toured two of Smail’s works. His music has been performed at numerous leading venues including The Barbican, The South Bank Centre, The Royal Court Theatre, BAM (New York), as well as festivals in the UK and Europe. His most recent film score was for Jonathan Nossiter’s "Last words," which was selected at Cannes in 2020.

 

Emily Wilson is Department Chair and Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, holding the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College B.A. in Classics and Corpus Christi College M.Phil. in Renaissance English Literature) and Yale University (Ph.D. in Classics and Comparative Literature). She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and Early Modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. Already well-known as an academic and a writer, in 2018 she achieved international renown for her translation of The Odyssey. “Wilson prioritises Homer’s speed and narrative drive, seeking to capture the nimble gallop of his verse. She writes in iambic pentameter, impressively limiting herself to the same number of lines as Homer’s original.” (Madeline Miller, Washington Post). “Emily Wilson is a rockstar the likes of which we have never seen.” (Edinburgh Fringe) “She strips away the mannered layers, the tarnish of centuries. Her translations have the freshness of the sky after a storm. Their briskness and simplicity are faithful to the oral tradition, and she brings the poems to a new generation, which wants clarity.” (AE Stallings, poet and Professor of Poetry at Oxford University) In 2023, she produced an equally lauded translation of The Iliad. 

 

Isabella Bywater is an award winning designer and director for Opera and Theatre. Most recently, in autumn 2024, she directed and designed Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw for the English National Opera at the London Coliseum. It was hailed as a masterpiece. In April 2023 Isabella directed and designed Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs for the English National Opera at the London Coliseum conducted by Lidyia Yankovskaya, with soprano Nicole Chevalier. Her debut in 2013 as director/designer was Gounod’s Faust at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, conducted by Valery Gergiev, which opened to critical acclaim. She has since directed and designed Puccini’s Il Tabarro, Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica, for Den Norske Opera in Oslo, Lucia di Lammermoor for Den Jyske Opera in Denmark and La Boheme for San Diego Opera in California. She was nominated for two Golden Mask Awards for best production design and best costume design and nominated for a Golden Sofit Award for best scenography; winning the Golden Sofit Award for Best Opera Production of 2011 all for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Mariinsky, St Petersburg. She is also a portrait sculptor and studied philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London.