One hundred years of Ulysses. The work that made James Joyce immortal was published in 1922, and this year is a special Bloomsday. It will be – like every year – even more special in Trieste, the city where Joyce began writing the first chapters of the novel. The highlight day is June 16, the day when the entire Ulysses action takes place. Trieste will come alive with performances that stage, more or less symbolically and intertwining all the performing arts, episodes of the novel: it starts at eight in the morning with the breakfast loved by Leopold Bloom (the protagonist of Ulysses) at the ancient lighthouse, the Lantern. The public will be invited to have breakfast with the actors who interpret the performance. The lighthouse, a simulacrum of Sandycove’s Martello Tower from the novel, will be illuminated with a green light in honor of Ireland, the homeland of Joyce.
The Bloomsday performances are scheduled in different points of Trieste, one hour away from each other: a real literary day to be followed as a stream of consciousness, exactly according to the method used by Joyce to write Ulysses. Worth noting: Nausicaa, at 8 pm, on the most famous Trieste beach – that of Pedocin – where Ulysses / Lepold Bloom will be played by Sergio Rubini and Nausicaa / Gerty Mc Dowell by Maria Grazia Plos. The Circe chapter, on the other hand, is scheduled for 11 pm, with a dance show between the Scala in piazza Cornelia Romana and the Teatro dei Fabbri. The last episode will be represented with a monologue by Diana Höbel and Cosimo Miorelli’s electronic brushes at two in the morning, in the auditorium of the Revoltella Museum.
But the Joycians, as we know, are an army of tough and pure in which there is no shortage of prominent names. Many will participate in the centenary Boomsday, as indeed they participated in those of the past, even in the days following the 16th: the celebrations continue until Sunday 19th. June, every evening at 7pm at the Politeama Rosetti). Also on the 17th (at 9 pm, at the Politeama Rossetti), Morgan’s piano recital, which promises to bring Bloom’s flow of consciousness from the words to the piano keys. Edoardo Camurri’s speech is scheduled for Saturday 18 to 18 in the Sala Bazlen of Palazzo Gopcevich. On the 18th (at 9 pm) Moni Ovadia and Sara Alzetta staged Oh said ah, fifty minutes of Joyce concentrate extracted from the pages of the novel by the translator Enrico Terrinoni.
Here you can find the complete program of the centenary Bloomsday in Trieste.