The name Romeo Castellucci was on everyone’s lips after his representative work “Hey Girl!” was presented at F/T 09 Spring. This autumn the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio leader returns to Japan with the consecutive staging of “Inferno” “Purgatorio” and “Paradiso”, a trilogy that has already shaken audiences across the world.

A portrait of mankind living in hell today

The first part of the trilogy was premiered at the Honor’s Court at the Pope’s Palace in Avignon in 2008.
“Inferno” is the place where the dead go to suffer eternal punishment for the sins they committed when they were alive.
Dante is guided by the poet Virgil on his journey through the underworld, however the artist find himself plunged into the dark woods not knowing what he is guilty of. Confronted by the crowd and assaulted by the ghosts of poetry who bite him like dogs, he doubts, he fears, he suffers..
“Inferno” is an endless quest for what hell is today.

Creating his own “La Divina Commedia”

When he was appointed associated artist at the 2008 Avignon Festival, Castellucci chose to work with one of the most important literary works of Western civilization; Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The worldview according to The Divine Comedy continually exerts heavy influence on both the Western culture and the rest of the world. Maintaining that every attempt to stage Dante’s magnum opus would be an impossible task, Castellucci has chosen to face the work by “becoming Dante”. Loosely inspired by the masterpiece, Castellucci’s re-interpretation approaches the majestic spectacle dealing with the themes of life and death, from a contemporary point of view.