He is the poet who went through hell and returned: Dante Alighieri. His masterpiece ‘The Divine Comedy’ forms the basis for world literature to this day. In three parts – ‘Inferno’, ‘Purgatorio’ and ‘Paradiso’ – he describes an unparalleled poetic adventure. On Good Friday 1300 he loses his way in a dark forest, the Kingdom of the Dead, and is taken in hand by the poet Vergil first through hell, then through purgatory and finally entering the spheres of heaven.

The reading focuses on the second part of is vast work which has also inspired numerous productions in the Ruhrtriennale 2016: ‘Purgatory’ (Purgatorio). The three actors Thomas Anzenhofer, Jele Brückner and Michael Lippold encounter the souls of sinners doing penance. On seven successive terraces they see the sufferings and hopes of the proud, the envious, the wrathful, the slothful, the avaricious, the gluttonous and the lustful.  On the way through purgatory, Dante himself also needs to cleanse himself of his own false passions, most particularly his pride. A literary journey of remarkable imagination and linguistic power.