Riehm wrote his own libretto based on several texts related to the meeting of Odysseus and Circe with the Sirens as told in Homer's Odyssey.
He used text elements related to the story not only from the Odyssey but also by Karoline von Günderrode, Giovanni Pascoli and Isabelle Eberhardt, illuminating various aspects of the myth.
[3] In 1994, he had composed the music theatre work Das Schweigen der Sirenen (The Silence of the Sirens) after a story by Franz Kafka for soprano and instruments.
[1][3] The opera was premiered on 14 September 2014 at the Oper Frankfurt, staged by Tobias Heyder and conducted by Martyn Brabbins.
The composer met the singers, especially Tanja Ariane Baumgartner and Lawrence Zazzo, who sang the two main characters, and wrote their roles for their specific voices.