‘Satanic Broadway’ is how one reviewer from the New Yorker describes Louis Andriessen’s adventurous film opera La Commedia: a bold but apt statement. The prolific Dutch composer has achieved a great deal of success throughout his career, and can count himself among the greatest living composers of our time. La Commedia (2008), encompassing a number of different styles, including minimalism, stile antico and jazz, is one of the finest strings to his bow. The opera is based loosely around Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and, as described in the CD sleeve notes, is a cycle of five mini-cantatas: ‘The City of Dis, or The Ship of Fools’, ‘Racconto dall’inferno’, ‘Lucifer’, ‘The Garden of Delights’ and ‘Luce Etterna’.

Cristina Zavalloni is our narrator as the complex Dante, while the late Dutch actor Jeroen Willems portrays a charismatic but troubled Lucifer. Claron McFadden is a beguiling and ethereal Beatrice, and the Asko-Schönberg Ensemble, under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw, delivers an electric reading of Andriessen’s score. Andriessen explains his casting choices: ‘I’ve always been more interested in working with singing actors than acting singers. So the three principal voices in the opera are not conventional types.’

Zavalloni is the true star of La Commedia. No wonder, considering Andriessen composed the opera with Zavalloni in mind, describing her as ‘the first since Cathy Berberian [twentieth-century American mezzo-soprano, and wife and muse to Andriessen’s former teacher Luciano Berio] to produce the right vernacular quality’. Six years since their first collaboration in 2002 (La Passione for soprano and violin), Andriessen has created a masterpiece for the singer. Zavalloni’s voice, while retaining its distinctive timbre, has flourished into a lovely, full soprano. Enjoy La Commedia not just on your stereo but also on DVD, and allow yourself to follow Zavalloni and be drawn into Andriessen’s ‘Satanic’ musical world.

Alexandra Mathew