devising, artistic direction and directing by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari
on stage Ermanna Montanari, Marco Martinelli, Alessandro Argnani, Luigi Dadina, Roberto Magnani, Gianni Plazzi, Massimiliano Rassu, Laura Redaelli, Alessandro Renda and the citizens of the Public Call
music Luigi Ceccarelli with the pupils of the school of Electronic Music and pupils of the school of Percussion of the State Conservatory Ottorino Respighi-Latina and with the participation of the pupils of the Giuseppe Verdi Higher Institute of Musical Studies-Ravenna
set design Edoardo Sanchi with students of the Two Year Specialisation in Stage Design for Theatre at the Fine Arts Academy of Brera-Milan
costumes Paola Giorgi with Salvatore Averzano and students of Stage Costumes at the Fine Arts Academy of Brera-Milan
sound design Marco Olivieri
lighting design Francesco Catacchio
technical direction Enrico Isola and Fagio
production Ravenna Festival in coproduction with Ravenna Teatro/Teatro delle Albe
Servizio su "Fahrenheit", Rai Radio 3, puntata del 24 gennaio 2017
Servizio su "Chi è di scena", Tg3, puntata del 21 maggio 2017
Servizio su "Il teatro di Radio3", Rai Radio 3, puntata del 3 giugno 2017
Servizio su "Chi è di scena", Tg3, puntata dell'11 giugno 2017
Servizio su "Retroscena", TV2000, puntata del 13 giugno 2017
Podcast del servizio su "For.Mat", Rai Radio 3, puntata del 16 giugno 2017
Gallery fotografica su Amadeus
Servizio su Amadeus, 22 luglio 2017
The Cultural Relations Centre of the Municipality of Ravenna has awarded Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari the Lauro Dantesco ad honorem 2017 for the devising, art direction and directing of INFERNO Public call for Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy”, acknowledging the merit of having “led a city and its citizens to be themselves a cultural worksite and an instrument of restoring a profound Dantesque identity”.
The National Association of Theater Critics gives Ermanna Montanari the 2017 Critics Award for Best Actress for INFERNO Chiamata pubblica per la "Divina Commedia" di Dante Alighieri.
The Ubu Association for Franco Quadri assigns Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli the Ubu Prize 2017 "Best curatorial project" for INFERNO Chiamata Pubblica per la "Divina Commedia" di Dante Alighieri, conceived and directed by Martinelli and Montanari, production Ravenna Festival in coproduction with Teatro delle Albe / Ravenna Theater.
For years we’ve imagined the challenge of transforming the Comedy into a stage adventure. The word teatron, vision, we find in the definition Dante gives of his work, ‘miraculous vision’, hence miraculous theatre, able to take into its own visual field the multiple experiences of the whole of humanity.
The key with which we have translated the Dantesque ‘transcendence of human nature’ is to think of the work in terms of sacred mediaeval representations and the revolutionary mass theatre of Majakovskij: the whole city is a stage, all the citizens are called upon to ‘becoming a place’, to make a community.
The substance from which we set out is a recognition between artists and citizens in a shared creation, at once radically democratic, because it puts everyone in the same circle, and highly aristocratic, because the artistic journeys made over the years carry their own weight. A fecund, political and spiritual paradox. In our Inferno, Dante will be the spectator: he will make the journey in the ‘blind world’. With his own feet. Ezra Pound defined Dante as Everyman: he is the whole of humanity on that difficult but redeeming way. We must truly leave the forest that obscures our mind. Taking the spectators by the hand one by one, like Virgil with Dante, to lead them into ‘secret things’, will be an alchemical couple, custodian and guide. Having set out from the Poet’s tomb we arrive before the gate of hell, that of the Teatro Rasi, formerly the church of Santa Chiara in the years when Dante lived in Ravenna, totally transformed and practicable. A prismatic space, violated by signs of destruction, zeroing, sacrilegious 'act'. Music is essential in this work, underscoring its choral dimension: the 'sound cocoon' nature will accentuate the brutality of the figures who live there. If our century, and the one behind us, are specialists of infernos with no way out, the Dantesque one is a challenge full of stairways: though horror runs through us, though every damned soul represented there mirrors the spectator-traveller, though evil grabs us by the throat and takes our breath away, we know that re-ascent is possible. That the stars indicate our destiny.
Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari
Info: Ravenna Festival
