Newtown Odyssey

Performed on floating stages for an audience in boats and on the shore, Newtown Odyssey debuted in 2023 on Newtown Creek, a tributary of New York’s East River. It couldn’t be performed anywhere else. The creek is not only the setting but also the opera’s subject and raison d’être.

One of the primary objectives of the project – and in hindsight, one of its greatest achievements – is to bring people to the water. Many New Yorkers barely know the creek exists, let alone that they are allowed to access it. It is a profound change of perspective to be by the water, on the water, with the water.

The performance is structured as a guided tour of the creek, albeit only covering about ten metres of it. Audience members become participants following the tour in boats or on foot. Along the way, they encounter various eccentric characters: citizen scientists, property developers, a 19th century ghost, and the Creek Being, an embodiment of the waterway itself. The music – like the characters, the performance and the creek’s history – is eclectic, drawing from various musical styles. Much of the set and props are made from objects found in the creek. Beauty and corruption are blended here, where trash becomes art and the polluted water reflects the shining sky. Over the decades this waterway has been subject to oil spills, chemicals, sewage and garbage, and yet it teems with life and hope.

The sounds, smells, wildlife, citylife, leisure and industrial activities that make up the everyday of the creek participate in the performance, a multi-sensory backdrop to this unconventional opera. There is something whimsical, or even subversive, about the very idea of an opera on the creek. And although there is humour in the performance, there is an underlying seriousness in the need it conveys: to give our attention and care to the water bodies that sustain us.  – I. Borrell