Displaying items by tag: Dante 360

Dante 360 Virgil Edition is the latest iteration of a performance work first launched in 2021. Directed by Peggy Garvey, the recurring presentations are billed as an education program, aimed to illuminate 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s three-part Divine Comedy, which traces an imagined journey through hell (The Inferno); purgatory (the Purgatorio) and heaven (the Paradiso). Written by Elizabeth Lev, an art historian (and scholarly guide during the show) each version focuses on a perspective of a different historical character who figures in Dante’s poem.

The production includes famous artwork inspired by the Divine Comedy, Botticelli through William Blake, dance, Dante’s poetry, and recordings of both ancient and classic musical, as well original works scored by Michael Alan Anderson. Singers of the Schola Antiqua Ensemble perform live, quite hauntingly. 

The show opens with Lev at a lectern, a vibrant and animated speaker who stirs excitement and anticipation for the show to follow. Lev has a PhD in art history from the University of Bologna, and she resides in Italy with her family. With a TED Talk online with 1.6 million views, Lev is both credible and inspiring, and reappears at welcome intervals delivering context for the slices of Dante’s poem that we will see visualized on stage. She tells a powerful personal story of being moved to baptize her children, inspired by Dante’s descriptions of unbaptized souls trapped in purgatory, including the great Roman poet Virgil (played by Mike Rogalski), Dante’s escort in the poem and on stage. Lev also lets us know Dante’s writing was the first great work written in vernacular Italian.  At times, Lev tells us, when existing words were inadequate to his vision of the afterlife, he created new ones.

When Lev finishes, an Elder Dante (Curtis Powell) launches into lines from the opening of the Divine Comedy. Seated at a wooden writing desk, Elder Dante speaks first in Italian, then English in the translation by John Ciardi. This is what we came for. On stage a younger Dante (Alex Schultz) enacts scenes, usually wordlessly, and the host of actors join him at various points. Tall banners serve as screens for patterns and representations of the artworks, beautifully set in motion. (Nicholas Taboni is Projection Designer and Media Designer; Mike Goebel is Technical Director and Lighting Designer.) 

A host of actors bring to life the characters from Dante’s poetry selected for this view of his masterwork. Beatrice (Rae Lindenberg), the unrequited love of his life who died, speaks at various moments, and serves periodically as Dante’s coach and inspiration, and his guide into paradise, where the poet imagines her soul lives on. 

One memorable scene in hell finds lovers Francesca (Katie Wasserman) and Paolo Maletesta (Hayden Lane-Davies), killed during an adulterous affair, condemned in Dante’s mind to toss in winds to and fro, seeing each other in passing but never able to embrace. He is able to stop them for a moment to question them before they return to their perpetual suffering. They stop just for a moment, separately, to converse with Dante, then are picked up again by the continuous winds to which they are condemned for eternity.

All this sounds pretty good, but as an audience member, past these memorable moments at the outset, it grinds on and becomes tedious. There are high points borne of the imaginative Dante, such as Thomas Aquinas (James Turano is excellent) singing the praises of Francis of Assisi. But Rogalaski’s recitation of Dante’s verse didn’t seem lyrical, making it less compelling, for me, anyway.  

What we get is an expression of the conviction and passion that Lev has for Dante’s Divine Comedy. That comes across. I wish I had heard more of her throughout the two hour and thirty minutes (one intermission). Somewhat recommended, Dante 360 Virgil Edition runs through November 15, 2026 at the Athenaeum Center in Chicago.