Tales of love and redemption in Dante and Beatrice
Epic tales of love and redemption seem out of place in our dystopian world, yet they continue to inspire artists and audiences, as this second concert in fortyfivedownstairs’ Chamber Music Festival bore witness.
Dante & Beatrice: Lovers and Visionaries ★★★★
fortyfivedownstairs
Reviewed by Tony Way, Sydney Morning Herald
Epic tales of love and redemption seem out of place in our dystopian world, yet they continue to inspire artists and audiences, as this second concert in fortyfivedownstairs’ Chamber Music Festival bore witness.
From artist William Blake to composer Ferenc Liszt, Dante’s sprawling 14th-century masterpiece, The Divine Comedy (a chronicle of the poet’s journey through hell, purgatory and paradise) has long sparked artistic imagination.
Pianist Ben Fu’s masterly account of Liszt’s “fantasia quasi sonata”, After A Reading of Dante, provided a suitably dramatic point of departure, deftly mixing devilish technical feats with romantic yearning.
At the centre of the program stood a new song cycle for four voices and piano by Gordon Kerry, Dante and Beatrice, the libretto adapted by Kerry and Margot Costanzo from the 1911 translation by inaugural chief justice of Australia, Sir Samuel Griffith.
Kerry has worn his considerable literary and musical erudition lightly, creating an engaging work with clear storylines and effective dramaturgy, enfleshed in an evocative musical idiom which subtly references plainchant and British mid-century modernism.
Cast from strength, each of the performers vividly characterised the cycle’s fours scenes. Soprano Rachael Joyce embodied the beatific Beatrice who sends a solemn Virgil (baritone Christopher Hillier) to guide the passionate Dante (tenor Owen Boyd) through hell’s labyrinth and the fires of purgatory towards heavenly joy. Along the way, Dante dreams of the sensuous, scarlet woman Francesca da Rimini (mezzo-soprano Dimity Shepherd) damned to hell for adultery.
Solidly supported by the unflappable Coady Green on piano, the singers gave a masterclass in crystalline diction.
Offering a final tribute to Francesca da Rimini in a different musical vein, Joyce gave a searingly heartfelt rendition of Gulliver Poole’s Paper Love, a torch song in the grand jazz tradition.
Even if utopia is unreachable, Dante’s inspiration offers sustenance in difficult times.