Louis Andriessen - La Commedia Video Trailer

Louis Andriessen’s latest music-theatre work, a collaboration with film director Hal Hartley, is based principally on Dante’s Commedia. The non-linear narration unfolds in five stadia that also show the influence of Hieronymus Bosch. The simultaneous existence of heaven, purgatory and hell, parallels between various scenes and the use of film and stage effects all create the complexity that is necessary to do justice to Dante’s greatest creation. To this end, all events portrayed on the film screen and on stage, including dance, the spoken word and song, should be regarded as a reaction to Andriessens’ extremely varied music. At the end of the piece we are left alone in the silence of eternity with Beatrice and the perennial grumbler Cacciaguida.

This video appears on boosey.com with the kind permission of De Nederlandse Opera.