In “Iphigenia in Aulis,” the last great work by the Athenian playwright Euripides, she volunteers to be sacrificed in order to help her countrymen wage war, but she’s mysteriously saved by the goddess Artemis. To him, the Iphigenia character is a figure whose heroism has gone unsung. He has been enamored of comic-book heroes since he was a child, and his most recent album, the triple-disc orchestral behemoth “Emanon,” came packaged with a comic that Shorter had helped create, about a rebel hero fighting off evil in a dystopian world. (“A definition of faith is to fear nothing,” he said in our interview.) And he speaks of starring “in the movie of your own life,” by which he basically means taking control. SHORTER, BROADLY UNDERSTOOD to be the foremost living composer in jazz, often talks about the need for bravery, in art and life. Dosed up with inspiration, he would often rise at 3 a.m., wheel himself to his writing desk, and continue composing the music to “Iphigenia” by hand - with pen, Wite-Out and a ruler. He regained strength, and his tremor subsided. “It was really a jazz concert, from the beginning to end.”Īnd somehow, the experience seemed to restore Shorter’s health. “This was all about invention: Esperanza was inventing, Wayne was inventing, and I got to invent alongside of them,” Gehry, 92, said in an interview. Collaborators dropped in often, including the members of Shorter’s longtime quartet, whom he wrote into the score as a kind of counterweight to the full orchestra. Spalding moved in as well, and it became a habitat of music-making, movie-watching (Shorter is an intense buff) and trading ideas. Shorter learned in mid-2019 that his house was riddled with toxic mold, worsening his decline, so he and his wife, Carolina, moved into Gehry’s empty home in Santa Monica. “I don’t know exactly what it is, but it couples with my mission - and the mission that I think a lot of people should discover within themselves.” “Esperanza has a mission,” he said, punctuating each word, his 88-year-old voice crackling with excitement. In an interview, Shorter said he had been lifted by the dedication of Spalding, a fellow traveler. The famed architect Frank Gehry came on to draft the set designs, and the director Lileana Blain-Cruz came aboard to bring the story onstage.

Heroes 3 in the wake of gods