Adès: Dante
Released on April 21, 2023
Recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall in April 2022 during performances conducted by Los Angeles Philharmonic Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, Thomas Adès’ Dante is a ballet score in three acts – “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso” – inspired by the alternately chilling and sunlit landscapes of Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia.
- 2024 Grammy® Award Winner: Best Orchestral Performance
- Album available on streaming services, CD, and vinyl.
- Listen to a preview track, “XII. The Thieves—devoured by reptiles,” at the links below.
Listen to Dante:
Buy Vinyl | Buy CD | Apple Music | Amazon Music | Pandora | Spotify | Tidal | YouTube Music | Deezer
Written in the 14th century, this seminal Italian poem recounts an initiatory journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. Adès and choreographer Wayne McGregor brought this medieval Christian fantasy to life as The Dante Project in London 2021 with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Ballet via a narrative arc about a young woman named Beatrice who embodies a promise of love and hope.
This concert performance of the ballet score by the Los Angeles Philharmonic is the work’s world-premiere audio recording.
Track Listing
Side A: Inferno
- I. Abandon Hope—
- II. The Selfish—stung by wasps
- III. The Ferryman
- IV. Pavan of the Souls in Limbo—
- V. Paolo and Francesca—the endless whirlwind
- VI. The Gluttons—in slime
Side B: Inferno
- VII. The Suicides—the bleeding trees—
- VIII. The Deviants—on burning sand—
- IX. The Fortune-tellers—facing both ways
- X. The Popes’ Adagio—heads first—
- XI. The Hypocrites—in coats of lead
- XII. The Thieves—devoured by reptiles
- XIII. Satan—in the lake of ice
Side C: Purgatorio
- I. Dawn on the Sea of Purgatory—
- II. Mount Purgatory—
- III. The Valley of Flowers—
- IV. The Healing Fire—
- V. The Earthly Paradise—
- VI. The Heavenly Procession—
- VII. The Ascent
Side D: Paradiso
- Paradise—Moon—Mercury—Venus—Sun—Mars—Jupiter (The Eagle)—Saturn (The Golden Ladder)—Fixed Stars—Empyrean
Dante is a co-commission of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Royal Ballet with generous support from the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund. Inferno was co-commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam.
About the Composer:
Thomas Adès exemplifies a generation of composers who drew upon the long history of symphonic music but rethought those traditional forms with a postmodern eye and sometimes ironic distancing. A prodigious composer, conductor, and pianist, Adès was born in London in 1971. His singular body of work is crowned by three critically acclaimed operas: Powder Her Face (1995), The Tempest (2004), and The Exterminating Angel (2016), as well as the ballet Dante (2019-20). The recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the 2000 Grawemeyer Award (for his 1997 orchestral work Asyla), Adès was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival for a decade and has conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras, including Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, the Los Angeles Philhamonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he became the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Artistic Partner; he premiered his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Kirill Gerstein as soloist with that orchestra in March 2019. He performs worldwide as a pianist, and coaches annually at the International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove.
About The Dante Project:
The first performance of The Dante Project, comprising Inferno: Pilgrim, Purgatorio: Love, and Paradiso: Poema Sacro, was staged at the Royal Opera House in London in October 2021. The Dante Project was a co-production between The Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet.
The Dante Project
Wayne McGregor, Choreography
Thomas Adès, Music
Tacita Dean, Design
Lucy Carter and Simon Bennison, Lighting Design Inferno: Pilgrim
Lucy Carter, Lighting Design Purgatorio: Love and Paradiso: Poema Sacro
Uzma Hameed, Dramaturgy
Edward Watson, Dante
Gary Avis, Virgil
Sarah Lamb, Beatrice
Artists of The Royal Ballet: Sinners, Penitents, and Celestial Bodies
Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, London
