Benali’s climate odyssey leads past sirens and a snack bar

Mother isn’t too worried about the rising water. Don’t they live three floors up? Daughter Thalia (nickname: Odiezee) disagrees. She can think of little else and climbs on the fridge. This is how family performance begins Odiezee from Holland Opera. Author Abdelkader Benali wrote the libretto, which is loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey. The epic has been rigorously modernized, but fragments of the original work can still be recognized.

The hero of the story is the young Odiezee – a fine role by Vera Fiselier, who nicely balances her character between sensible and brash. Odiezee’s mother has been behaving strangely since her husband left. She is suddenly ‘threesome’, her character divided into a trio of ladies in panther print: Hera (Florien de la Fosse), Afrodite (Erik Slik) and Athene (Berend Eijkhout). One is sweet, the other a thinker or a loser, who is always busy with her phone.

Directed by Rianne Meboer, we see the girl on an adventure in her neighborhood. When she is spraying graffiti, a group of sailors suddenly appears. They look for a new ship, Odiezee decides to help. A journey full of dangers follows, such as sirens that sing about the temptations of (telephone) screens. Like daleks from the TV series ‘Doctor Who’, they come rolling in and then – swaying with rope-like tentacles – start their seductive song.

Seaworthy soundtrack

Musically, the waves crash over the stage in compositions by Anne-Maartje Lemereis. With his bajan (Russian accordion), Robbrecht Van Cauwenberghe puts a seaworthy soundtrack under the scenes, interspersed with exciting rhythms. The performers weave their voices through this with clear outbursts, dark bass and powerful harmony vocals. The lyrics are poetic or comical, for example when the sailors enter a snack bar hungry and sing their order.

Odiezee’s journey surprises, but is also a bit rudderless. For an opera of 45 minutes, many themes are touched upon: a father who has disappeared, climate problems and our screen addiction, but little is explored in depth. Odiezee looks for her father, but does not find him. And it is not really clear what she should do with that sea now.

The players do switch energetically between their (double) roles and create an intriguing universe. The decor plays an important role in this: a column that houses various locations. The actors thus turn out a different setting. Suddenly they are in a cramped kitchen, a rough street with a waste bin or at the snack bar. That’s how it gets Odiezee a pocket-sized odyssey.

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