By Aliza Billet, Arts and Cultures Editor
This past December, for the first time in my life, I found myself counting down the days until Christmas. “But Aliza,” you may be screaming at your screen/hard copy of this paper, “you are a religious Jew!” Do not worry, I tell you, quelling the screams. I was counting down the days to find out how Odysseus’s reunion with his wife and child would go, because on December 25, 2024 Jorge Rivera-Herrans released the final saga of his Odyssey-based musical concept album, EPIC: the Musical.
EPIC: the Musical is a reinterpretation of Homer’s The Odyssey through song. Over the course of two and a half hours, the completely sung-through concept album tells the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he desperately attempts to guide himself and his 600 men home after the Trojan war. Odysseus faces trials and tribulations, until he ultimately returns alone, a changed man. The music itself is exciting and emotional, and is almost a puzzle for the listener to decipher, with its engaging leitmotifs and multi-layered instrument tracks.
While EPIC is the brainchild of Jorge Rivera-Herrans, millions of fans have been following it since its inception, as Rivera-Herrans documented his creation process on TikTok since 2021. He even cast the singers for the various roles through the social media platform, holding open auditions by inviting people to simply post videos of themselves singing cuts of the different songs he requested. Then, from December 25 of 2022 until this past Christmas, Rivera-Herrans slowly released the professionally-recorded versions of his songs for all to hear.
Like The Odyssey it is based on, EPIC: the Musical is split into parts, known in EPIC as “sagas.” Each of the nine sagas of EPIC consists of three to five songs, totaling 40 songs in the complete project. The bite-sized nature of the sagas makes the musical easy to listen to, as you really can listen to it bit by bit, and put it down after 11-23 minutes, depending on the saga. You will want to keep listening, though, because the music is just that good.
Like all musicals, EPIC relies on cohesive themes to tie the songs together, cluing its audience into the story and characters. Depending on their familiarity with musical techniques, listeners may or may not notice these details. However, in opening up his creative journey of producing EPIC to the world, Rivera-Herrans explained a lot of these layered moments, ensuring that even a layperson who isn’t so well-versed in musical theory can understand them. The best example of this is what Rivera-Herrans calls “the danger motif,” a small melodic string of notes, which he explains represents danger. It is first heard in the first song, The Horse and the Infant, during the Trojan War, and is present throughout the entire musical in different moments, symbolizing imminent or present danger for the characters.
Another layer of EPIC comes in the way the musical instruments themselves serve a greater purpose in telling the story. Each main character is clearly represented by a different instrument, such as Athena’s piano or Odysseus’s electric guitar, each intentionally selected and utilized by Rivera-Herrans to tell the story in tandem with the lyrics. For example, in the final saga, Telemachus – son of Odysseus, represented in earlier songs by the acoustic guitar (in contrast or compliment to his father’s electric one) – fights the suitors before they can assault his mother, Penelope. There is a moment in the song “Odysseus,” before Telemachus appears, when the guitar playing his musical theme is heard, cluing the audience into the fact that he’s coming, even before he opens his mouth to sing. Not only that, but in that same song, the lyrics Telemachus sings are accompanied by the goddess Athena’s piano behind him – showing that Athena is present in the battle, even though she does not have any singing lines in the song.
While these elements are found in many musicals, the unique way they were presented to the public online makes the whole production almost like a musical scavenger hunt for listeners to play along with as they engage with the piece. These layers of the music make the musical exciting to return to over and over, as listeners can try to unpeel the layers every time they play the songs.
Not only is EPIC musically engaging, but it is emotionally stirring and philosophically stimulating as well. My favorite song in the whole musical, “Just a Man,” asks the central question the musical sets out to answer – “When does a man become a monster?” Throughout the story, the challenges and obstacles Odysseus faces force him to face that question. My second-favorite song – the act one closer, “Monster” – is the chilling moment he decides that it does take a kind of monstrosity to achieve his goal of getting home, because where he has tried to be kind and merciful to his foes, the ruthlessness he has experienced in return has led to others’ success. Listeners of EPIC see how much blood is spilled to get Odysseus home and are left wondering: is “ruthlessness a mercy upon ourselves,” or is there another way unexplored by the characters?
In the emotional department, the brand-new “Ithaca Saga” is a tidal wave. After 20 long years, Odysseus – sans the 600 men he started off with, all of whom have died horribly in one way or another – finally makes it home to his wife and son. The saga’s five songs are jam-packed. Penelope desperately evades the bloodthirsty suitors who wish to steal the throne (“The Challenge”) while the suitors’ sadistic plan to murder Telemachus and assault Penelope (“Hold Them Down”). Odysseus returns just in time to defeat all the suitors in a bloody battle (“Odysseus”) and share a shockingly soft reunion with Telemachus, the son he has not seen since infancy (“I Can’t Help But Wonder”). Finally, Odysseus and Penelope reunite in a breathtaking duet (“Would You Fall in Love with Me Again”). The final song is a beautiful conclusion to a story so full of strife and struggle. The Ithaca Saga as a whole is an exceedingly strong finale to the project that has been EPIC, and Rivera-Herrans knocked it out of the park, apparently saving his strongest of the nine sagas until the end.
All this to say, you should listen to EPIC. Perhaps I am a little biased, as the Ithaca Saga was my fourth-most-listened-to album of 2024 (I’ll remind you that it was only released on December 25). However, I stand by the recommendation. Worst case scenario, you don’t like it, and I’ll personally apologize. Best case scenario, you have been introduced to a fantastic work of art and gained 40 new songs to get stuck in your head. To quote Jack Kelly from Newsies (another musical I cannot recommend enough), “Who don’t want that?!”
Photo Caption: “The Odyssey” by Homer
Photo Credit: Unsplash