ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey: Teaching Ideas
Ulla’s Odyssey is an opera for children. It takes its inspiration from ancient Greek legends and modern-day
true-life adventure stories. It refers to a wide variety of current issues: the environment, migration, and
relationships. Above all, it is an adventure in music, drama and design.
These notes suggest ways teachers may like to connect the performance of Ulla’s Odyssey to parts of the
curriculum. They should also fit with school themes and achievement awards such as Eco-Award or Rights
Respecting Schools Award.
Some of the suggestions are for activities you can do ahead of seeing the performance of Ulla’s Odyssey,
which will make it a richer experience and help the pupils enjoy what is quite a challenging composition.
These ideas are designed with KS2 pupils in mind, but many would interest older pupils. Most exercises
could be done as individual work, pair-work, group-work or as a whole-class exercise.
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey: Homer’s Odyssey – for teachers
Curriculum links: History: Ancient Greece, Literacy
Before the performance:
Ask the pupils to find out about Homer’s Odyssey – When was it written? What is the basic story? Why is it
so famous?
Give the pupils a children’s version of Homer’s Odyssey to read. Ask them to look in particular at the
episodes about Scylla & Charybdis and the Cyclops.
Before the show you could give them a set of things to look out for when watching the performance.
Suggestions on worksheet - see next page.
After the performance
Ask the pupils how far knowing about Homer’s Odyssey helped their appreciation and understanding of
Ulla’s Odyssey.
Ask them to make a list of some of the things that are the same, and some of the things that are different.
As a creative writing project, pupils could write their own Odyssey: a story about a journey. This could be
any journey from an account about walking to school, to a swallow migrating, to a child fleeing from a war
zone to a new country. Challenge them to include at least one event or character that reminds the reader
of something in Homer’s original.
LINKS
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/history/ancient_greek_myths/myth/cyclops - this
includes a play-script about Odysseus and Polyphemus the Cyclops
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey: Homer’s Odyssey – worksheet for pupils
Ulla’s Odyssey is an opera inspired by the true-life story of a 16 year-old girl who sailed around the world
on her own. But it is also inspired by a very old story, one of the first stories ever told: The Odyssey,
composed by the Ancient Greek writer, Homer. Read a version of Homer’s Odyssey before seeing the
performance. While watching Ulla’s Odyssey, look out for references to events and characters in Homer’s
Odyssey. After the performance, try and answer these questions:
1. The main character of Ulla’s Odyssey is Ulla, a 16 year-old girl. What is the name of the main
character in Homer’s Odyssey?
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2. Who is Ulla’s boat named after?
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3. Ulla meets the Goddess of the Sea, based the God of the Sea in Homer’s Odyssey. What is the name
of the Ancient Greek God of the sea
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4. Ulla plays a rather mean trick on a character called the Cy-Ops who wants to arrest her cat. (Cy-Ops
is short for Cybernetically Operated Security, Signal, and Surveillance System!). What monster with
a similar name in Homer’s Odyssey does Odysseus, the hero, play a trick on to save his men?
................................................................................................................................................................
5. Ulla is ‘between a rock and a hard place’, when sailing between Sylla, a monster who wants to eat
her cat, and ‘Garibdis, greedy unstoppable Garibdis, A vortex of trash the size of a continent...’ (A
‘vortex’ is a whirpool). This is a reference to which Scylla and Charybdis, a pair of monsters in
Homer’s Odyssey. What real modern phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean is Garibdis based on. (clue:
google search for the Pacific Garbage Vortex)
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6. Ulla keeps hearing voices in her mind, mainly her mother and father. What monsters does Odysseus
hear singing to make people mad and drown.
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ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey: pollution – ideas for teachers and pupils (Curriculum links: science, PSHE)
In her circumnavigation of the world, Ulla encounters a
monster: Greedy unstoppable Garibdis, A vortex of trash the
size of a continent...’ This is a reference to the massive
amount of human-made waste that ends up in the Pacific
ocean. Ulla herself is guilty – at the beginning of the opera,
she carelessly tosses an empty plastic bottle into the sea. And
it’s not just stuff thrown into the sea that’s a problem.
Anything that we don’t recycle properly may well end up in
the sea. The rubbish drifts around until most of it ends up in
several huge ‘gyres’ – currents that just keep going round and
round (like a massive whirlpool). For more information visit:
http://nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/
This rubbish is really harmful to animals and to our whole ecosystem. Here are a couple of examples:
This baby albatross died after its
parents fed it plastic rubbish
This turtle is deformed having got stuck in a plastic
ring as a child.
As a class, collect recyclable rubbish to make a massive monster, or maybe several, like one the ones in Ulla’s
Odyssey, or Homer’s original story. Don’t forget at the end of term to dispose of your monster at a recycling centre!
Any projects around pollution and sustainability could make your school eligible for an eco-schools award!
Go to http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/applyforanaward
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Modern ‘Odysseys’ – for teachers and pupils (PSHE)
This opera was inspired by quite recent achievements by young
people. A particularly famous example was Laura Dekker, from
Holland. At the age of 14 she planned to sail around the world
on her own. As an experiment, she sailed from Holland to
England without telling her parents where she was going. The
Dutch government said she was too young to sail alone, and
stopped her going until she was 16. In 2009 aged 16, she sailed
all the way round the world with her dog, Spot. Find out about
Laura at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Dekker
In the same year, another 16 year-old, Australian Jessica Watson sailed round the world non-stop. More at
http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/
Other people have done similar amazing adventures. Here is a video of Alistair Humphreys’ story of how he
decided to cycle around the world, and how he valued the people who helped him along the way, rather
like Odysseus and Ulla: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/z6w9wmn
In Ulla’s Odyssey, Ulla hears voices (like the Sirens in Homer’s Odyssey). They are the voices of her parents,
who have different views on her adventure. Look at this extract from the libretto (a script in opera is called
the ‘libretto’, which means ‘little book’ in Italian). The two songs overlap: we call this a ‘duet’.
FEMALE SIREN (Overlapping)
Ulla. Unlike your father, I want so much more.
Come home, Ulla.
Just... Come...
Home.
MALE SIREN (Overlapping)
Ulla. Unlike your mother, I want so much more.
Go on, Ulla. Just do it for me.
Come home a winner. Conquer the sea.
I’d rather lose you than lose once more.
Both voices want something. The mother’s voice (female siren) wants Ulla home again. The father’s voice
(male siren) wants Ulla to be a ‘winner’ – as opposed to a ‘loser’ like him.
Discuss in groups: if you were a parent or carer, how would you decide what is safe and unsafe for a child?
Is it to do with a person’s age? Or to do with what they are like? Or both? Think about when your parents
let you do something on your own, like buy something in a shop, or go a friend’s house, or walk to school.
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey – the set: for teachers and pupils (Curriculum links: art and design)
After you watched the performance of Ulla’s Odyssey, what images did you remember?
1) The atmospheric lighting
How did the mood change with different lighting states? (That’s the technical term for different effects).
Try just turning the lights out in the classroom to see how different it feels. If you can, (and if you can do
this safely!) try seeing how different coloured filters over the lights affect the mood of a room.
2) The design of the boat
The point of the opera is that everything happens on or around a small boat. Here are some examples of
how the design went from rehearsal to production:
3) The concept
Only Ulla and her cat are supposed to be in the boat. The other characters are gods or monsters. But
people have to make the ship rock, the sail flap, and of course ‘animate’ Binnacle, the cat.
What did you like about the design? What didn’t you like?
Think of a story you enjoy. How would you try to make it into a performance like Ulla’s Odyssey? Tell us
about lighting, design and concept.
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey: design - costume
Here are sketches by Ulla's Odyssey designer, Faye Bradley, of the some of the costumes for the opera. But
when the costumes were finally made, after rehearsals, the designs changed in different ways.
And here’s what they looked like in performance…
What differences can you see?
Which costume is most different in performance than the original design?
What do you think inspired the costumes?
Which is your favourite costume? Why?
Did the costumes help your appreciation of , and understanding of the opera?
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey: design – Binnacle
The opera was inspired by Laura Dekker and her
dog, Spot. Ulla’s companion on her voyage around
the world is her cat, Binnacle. At first the producers
proposed a realistic toy cat to play Binnacle.
This didn’t seem to work, so in the first
production, in New Zealand, they tried
a person dressed as cat.
In the Opera Up Close production, they did something in between those two
ideas. ‘Binnacle’ would be played by two people and a puppet. One person is the
front legs of the cat; the other makes the head and body move. The actors spent
ages practicing how to make the puppet move like a real cat.
The actual puppet looks quite odd, as it is just the top half of a cat!
Design your own ‘part-puppet’. You might get a big flexible tube and a little flexible tube to be an elephant’s trunk
and tail, or a sharp nose and a fluffy tail to be a fox. You have to work out how 1, 2 or more people complete the rest
of the ‘part-puppet’.
Matt Hutchinson, who designed the cat puppet, has written a blog beginning ‘Binnacle weighs less than a bag of
sugar. His body is totally hollow.’ More at http://www.operaupclose.com/blogfolder/puppetry-and-binnacle
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS
Ulla’s Odyssey - music: ideas for teachers and pupils
Opera combines design, costume, lighting, acting, voice, and musical instruments.
The music of Ulla’s Odyssey is made by both the singers and the instrumentalists. Opera is always a combination of
singing and playing musical instruments. There are two instrumentalists in Ulla’s Odyssey:
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a ‘woodwind’ player, who plays a variety of wind instruments: flute, piccolo, clarinet, and saxophone
a pianist (who plays the piano!)
But the musical instruments are only a part of the sounds that create all the different moods of Ulla’s Odyssey. The
singers are just as much part of that ‘soundscape’. The singers use their voices to tell a story, not only with their
words, but with the musical sounds they make.
Listen to different kinds of music, such as jazz, pop, reggae, soul, rap. Listen to film themes like ‘Harry Potter’ and
‘Star Wars’. How do all those different kinds of music make you feel? Can you say why they make you feel like that?
John Williams, the composer of the ‘Star Wars’ theme tune, was inspired by a work from a 100 years ago called ‘The
Planets’ by Gustav Holst. Holst wrote a different piece of music to represent each planet in the Solar System. The
music was quite experimental at that time, with strange discords (combinations of notes that sound nasty or weird).
Ulla’s Odyssey is also an experimental way of writing music. It also has lots of strange discords. But it uses those
discords to represent the strangeness and power of the sea, and the situation Ulla is in, drifting in the vast ocean on
a small boat with her cat.
ULLA’S ODYSSEY
TEACHING IDEAS