Penelope and the Geese is an opera that is a feminist retelling of the Penelope story from The Odyssey. Our jumping off point is the issue of faithfulness, which has two different metrics in The Odyssey, one for Odysseus and one–with barely any room to breathe–for Penelope.  With this opera, we level that playing field.

All the musicians in Penelope and the Geese are women; the chorus is made up of sopranos and Penelope is a mezzo. Odysseus does not speak, though he is present (and asleep) during the whole opera. With the opera, my collaborators and I give voice to dimensions of the female characters in The Odyssey that have not been explored in the original.  And we’re doing this will all women creators and performers.