Washed up on an unknown beach, which is his own after all, Odysseus neither recognises his own homeland nor is he recognised himself after 20 years of wandering. 3000 years later, we are still a little uncertain whether we can really be at home somewhere and with what right and with what consequences we can speak of ourselves.
In a contemporary adaptation, Leo Hofmann and Benjamin van Bebber translate Monteverdi’s late opera »Odysseus’ return to the fatherland« into a scenic concert for six voices and mobile electronica. The music becomes a map and playground for an encounter with one’s own foreignness and shared homelessness. By playing and making music together, the international ensemble searches for intimacy and a fragile home in a present state shaped by global migration and blurring cultural borders – and for a community beyond identitary demarcation. Is my home my castle? Or can we be each other’s home? Is it worth the wait, Penelope?