Which circle of hell would Dante have found appropriate for a composer who used parts of his opus summum as models for an opera? Certainly not the anteroom to hell, which is reserved for the lukewarm souls who do not make up their minds, not even in favor of evil, and thus are not considered worthy of punishment either. Rather the upper circle of hell for sinners out of excess. To deal musically with a work like Divina Commedia, which has the entire previous world history as its subject, requires a corresponding level of self-confidence.
Lucia Ronchetti, who can now be heard in Frankfurt with her new opera “Inferno”, can claim attenuating circumstances: The idea for the opera came from those in charge of the Städtische Bühnen, who, however, knew exactly who they were offering this commission to for a music-theatrical work of this magnitude . With her vita, the composer from Rome seems to be predestined to deal with an all-encompassing work, the essential element of which is derived from the personality of the Italian poet as well as from his biography. Bruno Nardi put it pointedly. The subject of the gigantic poem is from beginning to end: I, Dante Alighieri, the Florentine ... I, Dante, son of Alighiero ...
From a young age, Lucia Ronchetti has been concerned with Dante, who understood the inferno as an “erotic narrative”, the entire work as an “alphabet and encyclopedia” for itself. Added to this is an almost restless thirst for knowledge: she studied composition, computer music and philosophy in Rome, and finished aesthetics and musicology in Paris with a dissertation on Wagner's influence on late Romantic music in France. She worked at the experimental studio of IRCAM, took part in the Darmstadt summer courses as a teacher, received a Fulbright scholarship in New York and was influenced by Gérard Grisey, Sylvano Bussotti and Salvatore Sciarrino.
Ideal prerequisites, it seems, to devote oneself to complex subjects, but also problematic when the epic colossus is encountered with hypertrophic musical means. But the clever composer avoided this in an impressive way by reducing the plot to nine non-stop scenes from Dante's “Inferno”, concentrating the orchestra to three sound sources - twelve timpani for four percussionists, fourteen brass instruments and a string quartet - and concentrating the plot to a narrative Dante, a vocal quartet for Dante's inner voice, a small mixed choir for the lost souls and eight actors and singers as the characters whom Dante met on his walk through hell. The accompanist Virgil was dispensed with in this libretto written by the composer herself.The writer Tiziano Scarpa has added an epilogue.
Fortunately, a circumstance caused by the pandemic did not turn out to be a serious handicap for the premiere of the work, which was now taking place in the Bockenheimer Depot. It was originally supposed to take place in April of last year, fell victim to the lockdown and has now been made up in concert, with not only the stage action, but also an accompanying opera film by Kay Voges and Marcus Lobbes that had already been shot was omitted. It will now also be shown separately in the Bockenheimer Depot on July 11th.
Without knowing the film and being able to judge its qualities, however, it can be stated that the quasi oratorical representation in connection with the sound develops a tremendous pull and focuses the attention entirely on the structure of the work. Because what is special about Lucia Ronchetti's score is the virtuoso interlocking of musical and linguistic-theatrical action. It must have been a great challenge for the cautiously leading Tito Ceccherini to conduct actors, as on the other hand it required their attention to adapt to the precisely timed inserts and the variable timbres of the instruments. The actors, mainly from the Schauspiel Frankfurt, have to be given the highest recognition: Frank Albrecht, Ralf Drexler,Florian Mania, Andreas Gießer, Anna Kubin. They not only give contour to the sinners from Dante's Inferno with their gestures, but also act musically very competently. You and Sebastian Kuschmann as the narrating Dante succeed in dramatizing the plot in German, which makes the sounds almost visible.
Lucia Ronchetti mentioned in a conversation that she had initially envisaged a kind of medieval Orff sound for the vocal (in Italian) and instrumental elaboration of the score, compact, quasi-primitive archaic, which is also derived from the reduction to brass and timpani of the Frankfurt Opera House. and museum orchestras could have resulted. Fortunately, she refrained from doing this. The most brutal clusters of sound naturally have their place in this hellish spectacle. But lurking, intensely lamenting sound contours, sometimes indefinitely threatening in their denatured noise, predominate, into which the vocal quartet (the fascinatingly intonating countertenor Jan Jakub Monowid as well as Matthew Swensen, Sebastian Geyer and Eric Ander), the choir meandering through the plot ,the soloist Schumann Quartet and the three vocal soloists who are both theatrical and musically very impressive, the mezzo-soprano Karolina Makuła (Francesca), the clever tenor Alexander Kravets (Ulisse) and Alfred Reiter with an appropriately powerful bass (Lucifero), with an appropriately powerful bass (Lucifero).