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Inferno of Dante: Canto V
Abstract
by Patrick Soluri
The Inferno is a work that has interested me for the last several years. This visceral and extremely visual poem has an epic quality I felt could work as an opera. I have worked on several vocal and operatic compositions that explore this work and its feasibility for a dramatic setting. It is a longtime goal of mine to eventually set the entire Inferno. This piece is a setting of the fifth Canto and is my first using a complete unedited Canto.
The biggest challenge in setting any part of the Inferno is adapting the text conceptually to work dramatically. With many obscure references and long descriptive narratives, this presents a formidable challenge. I have developed the following ideas over time to address the concerns and hopefully create a working dramatic language.
A goal of mine in creating this work was to make a complete work unto itself but one that also could fit within the framework of the entire Inferno. I hope to eventually set each of the 34 Canto into an operatic format. While I envision musical gestures that will reoccur throughout the entire Inferno, I also want each Canto to have self contained, idiosyncratic characteristics, like each Canto. I have already begun working on ideas to apply to the entire Inferno and already incorporated them into Canto V.
While the challenge of setting the Inferno into a successful dramatic composition is formidable, I believe it is possible. This setting of Canto V is the culmination of years of work and the anticipation of composing a full Canto while perhaps doubling as the beginning of a much larger work.
PROGRAM NOTES
Setting the Inferno as a dramatic opera created many unique challenges. Written at the beginning of the 14th century in an old Italian dialect, the work contains numerous descriptions of the people and places within the Inferno, but very little dialogue. It is these descriptions that form the heart of this text. In my analysis, I discovered that Dante wrote the Inferno with two voices; one for dialogue and another for narrative. The narrative is told from the perspective of Dante the Poet writing the story of an event that took place in the past. The dialogue is written in the present tense for the person actually making the physical journey, Dante the Pilgrim. My solution was to divide the character of Dante into two roles: Dante the Pilgrim and Dante the Poet. All dialogue is sung, and all narrative is spoken. Thus, Dante the Pilgrim is purely a singing role, and his material comes from the dialogue within the Inferno. Dante the Poet is a narrator, and his spoken material comes from the descriptive text of the Inferno.
Although the Divine Comedy is a complex story that encompasses mythology, politics and symbolism, more importantly it heralds the birth of modern humanism. Dante leads us into the very bowels of God’s Divine retribution, but even within the bowels we suffer with Dido, we tremble for Helen and we weep with Francesca and Paolo. We have forgotten God’s judgment in the face of our own humanity. Dante has moved away from the medieval mind set and towards the enlightenment, the autonomous individual.
With my two ballets, Ngoni and Madame X, I discovered a love of composing dramatic music for mythology and symbolic stories. Upon discovering the Inferno I was intrigued that it contained not only these elements, but also was a beautiful representation of the long forward-march of humanity. As a composer this was a great challenge and it is my hope that the story and its relevance has come alive within the music and upon the stage.
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