DUBAI – Otherworldly composer, poet and writer Vinicio Capossela enthralled the audience at Jubilee Park this evening (29 November) with idiosyncratic, phantasmagorical theatrical performance Bestiale Comedìa.
The artist has long focused his research on ancient personalities and themes far removed from modern-day codes, and drew inspiration from Italian poet, writer and philosopher Dante Alighieri – best known for epic poem The Divine Comedy – for a show paying tribute to the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death.
But while Dante’s was a journey through the dead to save the living, the Bestiale Comedìa is a voyage across the music and literary landscape to try to salvage it from the deep pit of bareness it has sunk into.
A scathing, but amusing commentary on today’s sterilised, commercialised society, the four-piece band, with Capossela’s rich and intense voice at the fore, immersed the audience in a quest to liberate the world from beastliness: a world free of nondescript, brightly lit warehouses, of home-delivery efficiency and of algorithms. It’s weird, wacky, bewitching and slightly worrisome – exactly how Capossela intends it.