Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was a man enchanted by the sea, in love with the sea, and inspired by the sea. While walking on the shores of Odessa one day, the sea spoke to him in a way that moved this soul to create. It spoke of the first seafarer in the Western consciousness, “the man of twists and turns,” the great Odysseus.
It awoke in Rimsky-Korsakov the idea to set a text from “The Odyssey” to music. Somehow, the blending of the streaming tides with the ancient words of the poet combined in just the right way, at just the right time, to give birth to a new work of art.
