Well, what a treat!
LA Opera closed its 2022/23 season on June 10 by presenting a one-night only performance by
one of America’s favorite songbirds in any style or medium. During An Evening with Renée
Fleming the much-honored, five-time Grammy Award winner was accompanied on the bare
stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by pianist extraordinaire Simone Dinnerstein and the
Emerson String Quartet (and yes, for all you transcendentalists out there like Revered Art Scott,
they are named after Ralph Waldo Emerson). In addition to enjoying Ms. Fleming’s dulcet tones
backed by exquisite, expertly rendered music, the sold-out audience was also lucky enough to
hear the West Coast premiere of an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey.
Created circa the 8 th century B.C., from Telemachus to television and beyond, Homer’s epic
poem about the Trojan War and far-flung voyages remains one of the greatest sagas ever told,
still arguably unsurpassed in the art of storytelling. As one can image, there have been many
iterations of Homer’s masterpiece over the centuries, from the Cream’s 1967 rock song Tales of
