INFERNO - Albert Vidal Paz

Year	2025
Category	Telluric rhapsody
Work	INFERNO
Premiere	Fira Tàrrega

This premiere of telluric rhapsody is the result of a process of stylization that has gradually taken shape in various non-conventional performance spaces: the underground level of the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, the second basement floor of a large parking lot in the city of Vic, and, finally, the cemetery of Torelló, within the framework of the Festus Festival.

At FiraTàrrega 2025, Chants I, II, and III were presented as an initiation into the journey to hell, and for the first time in their stage version.

The rhapsode’s recitation, delivered in Tuscan, is accompanied by orientative phrases that guide the narrative thread of the piece. Instead of a literal translation, the more than 130 verses of each chant have been condensed into around twenty sentences projected during the performance.

Regarding the stage language, the punctuation of Dante’s text has been meticulously respected. However, in this premiere, Albert introduces, in addition to the well-known teluric chants, a new modality he calls single-frequency chants, together with an innovative concept of achronic gestuality.

This atemporal gestuality seeks to express the anagogic content —that is, the spiritual and symbolic meaning— of Dante’s Inferno verses. The proposal invites the audience to take part in the creation of a spontaneous and creative choir —a manifestation of collective sonic intelligence that transforms the performance into a shared and sensorial experience.

All of this is the outcome of research carried out by the Laboratory of Telluric Art, founded by Albert in the 1990s, devoted to exploring the relationships between body, sound, space, and energy.