Msgr. Marco Frisina, a Vatican composer, is staging a "non-traditional opera" based on the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. The first part, based on Inferno, of course, is set to start rehearsals within the next few weeks, after which it will premier at the Vatican.
Reports suggest heaven will be full of classical style melodies, the limbo of purgatory will be illustrated with Gregorian Chant, with hell full of more jarring music.
Frisina said the use of rock music to describe the devil's den was not a value judgment on the genre but that rock's "violent and rebellious tones" help create "a hellish atmosphere".
Most of the lyrics will come word-for-word from the poem. Excellent.
This reminds me of when the Norton Anthology decided to include an edition of Ovid that used a hip-hop poetry slam to represent the inferiority of strictly human poetry compared to that divinely inspired by the muses.
Nope, no value judgments there.
Posted by: PeterTerp | January 10, 2007 at 11:07 PM