Un Benigni da Nobel

[More articles, videos, interviews and photos will be online very soon...]

(NY Daily News) - Isabella Rossellini, Elvis Costello, Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, Aidan Quinn and Lizzie Bracco came to see Roberto Benigni rhapsodize about Dante’s “Divine Comedy” at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday. Jim Jarmusch, who cast the Oscar-winner in “Down By Law,” “Coffee and Cigarettes” and “Night on Earth,” told us, “Americans mostly know him as a clown, but he’s incredibly erudite about art and literature.” Benigni himself was modest about his mastery of The Supreme Poet. “It is as if Jim Carrey would come to Rome talking about Walt Whitman,” Benigni told the packed house. The “Life is Beautiful” director spent almost as much time feasting on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s “jailbait affair” with 18-year-old model Noemi Letizia. “This underage pussy, it’s very dangerous,” said Benigni. “We picture Berlusconi at the 18th birthday party of the barely legal girl, just waiting in the wings for her to blow out her birthday candles…counting down the candles until finally, ‘Eighteen!!!’ You remember with Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton was asked, ‘Did you have sex with that woman?’ He said, ‘I did not have sex with that woman!’ In Italy, it is the opposite. Berlusconi says, “I had sex with that woman” and everybody says, ‘You did not!’ He says, ‘Yes, I did!’ He’s 73 years old. I never voted for him but now I think I will. It is a good image for Italians, no?”

If you attended TuttoDante show in New York, write and send your comments/reviews/photos to www.unbenignidanobel.it .
Send a message to info@unbenignidanobel.it - we’ll publish your articles in our website.

Here are some photos from yesterday night: Roberto Benigni performing on the stage of Hammerstein Ballroom, Manhattan Center, and after the show meeting friends and journalists (in the last two pictures
you can see Jim Jarmusch behind Roberto Benigni) :

Fri, May 29 (CBC Radio) - Roberto Benigni. The oscar-winning actor, writer, comedian and director talks to Jian Ghomeshi about his latest project - the great poet, Dante.

Benigni is making his first trip to Canada, performing June 2-3 at the St. Denis Theatre in Montreal, June 7 at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ont., and June 10 in Quebec City.

LISTEN TO THE RADIO INTERVIEW with Roberto Benigni on Q - CBC Radio (Canada)

Part 1

Part 2

«Fave Benigni moment/quote today (w/ apologies to Mark Twain): “I’d go to Heaven for the climate, but I want to go to Hell for the company.”»(Jihan Gomeshi’s Tweet after his interview with Benigni)

When Italian actor-director Roberto Benigni got up on stage to accept his best actor Oscar for Life is Beautiful in 1998, he quoted lines of love from Dante.

That tribute to his wife was part of a lifelong relationship the exuberant actor has had with Italy’s greatest classical poet. Benigni is coming to Canada next week with a one-man show about Dante Alighieri, a fellow Tuscan and the man who wrote the Divine Comedy.

Benigni has been touring Europe for three years with his show, TuttoDante (All Dante) and will make stops in Montreal, Orillia, Ont., and Quebec City. His American premiere in San Francisco took place Thursday night.

“It was a wonderful evening, very moving and very friendly, because in my upbringing, we can joke about everything, but not about poetry,” Benigni said of his debut.

Benigni, speaking to CBC’s cultural affairs show Q on Friday, mocked his own Italian-accented English but said the language of Dante is “universal.”

“I’ve been told, ‘You’re crazy, your English is [in]comprehensible, but Dante invented a new language and I am going to invent a new language too,” he said.

Benigni said his mother introduced him to the 14th-century poet, famous for conducting readers on a tour of hell, purgatory and heaven in Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. His mother urged Roberto to read Dante to improve his memory, but for the would-be actor, it was a flight of imagination.

“When I was a little boy, I was reading Dante and I was saying to myself ‘Bravo, Dante, Bravo.’ It’s so beautiful, the music, the sound, the meaning. I felt like calling him by phone, like a friend,” he said.

Dante’s poetry continues to move Benigni with its passion and tribute to love, he said.

“When you read Dante, you do believe. The exquisite truth is to believe in something that maybe you know is a fiction, but you believe in it willingly. We need a conversion … not a personal religious conversion … but a conversion of our imagination.

“We need to take notice of incomprehensible things, of the mystery of life and death — this is very healthy,” he said.
3 years of sold-out shows

Benigni’s show, which has sold out over the last three years in Europe, mixes the contemporary with his comic take on the world.

“The first part [is] about Berlusconi and Obama and what happens in the world. In the second part we talk about the first circle of hell, which is about [lust] — the lechers, about sex, about passion, about love. It’s very beautiful,” he said.

TuttoDante is performed in French or English and Italian, complete with a recitation from The Inferno in medieval Italian, which he believes is nonetheless accessible to all audiences.

“Dante Alighieri is a universal poet, and great creators they are writing for everybody always. Every single verse is very moving, and the beauty — if we don’t understand, we just stay listening to the sound and it’s like hearing music,” Benigni said.

Benigni is a national hero in Italy, having made some of that country’s most popular movies, including Johnny Stecchino (Johnny Toothpick) and Il piccolo diavolo (Little Devil).

He is also know by fans of ’80s and ’90s American art house cinema for his colourful acting turns in films by American director Jim Jarmusch, such as Night on Earth, Coffee and Cigarettes and Down by Law. That was his first work in English.

He has not made a movie while touring with TuttoDante, but said he plans to work on a new script this fall.

Here are two videos of the end of TuttoDante show in San Francisco (May 26, 2009):

“It was a wonderful evening, very moving and very friendly, because in my upbringing, we can joke about everything, but not about poetry” Benigni said of his American premiere in San Francisco.

Review: Roberto Benigni’s ‘TuttoDante’ - Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic

He didn’t leap through the audience, but Roberto Benigni hit the Davies Symphony Hall stage Tuesday with the same unbridled exuberance with which he’d received his “Life Is Beautiful” Oscar 10 years ago. The sold-out house cheered as he ran Olympic laps, bounced off the wall and greeted the house with, “Buona sera! I hope everybody speaks English.”

Then he got a bit carried away. “This is a flabbergasting moment,” Benigni continued. “I feel like to undress myself and to jump on you.”

An extra dose of ebullience would be understandable, even if it’s just Benigni’s standard operating mode. Tuesday marked his North American stage debut performing his solo “TuttoDante,” a runaway hit in Italy. A celebration and appreciation of his fellow Tuscan and the “Divine Comedy,” “Dante” moves on from its one-night stand here to New York (Saturday), followed by two nights in Montreal and two more gigs before closing June 12 in Chicago.

It isn’t actually all Dante, the title notwithstanding, but it is mostly in English, albeit fractured. It’s also very funny, oddly didactic, idiosyncratic, overlong (two hours and 10 minutes, without intermission), somewhat wearying and unexpectedly sublime.

Benigni opens the show in stand-up mode, riffing about his poor command of English (”I don’t understand myself what I am saying“), Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, American bathrooms, Florentine sewage, God’s errors (”He put dawn too early in the morning“) and the show itself (”like Jim Carrey in Rome doing a show about Walt Whitman - in Italian“). [...]

[...Read the full article on the San Francisco Chronicle website]

Benigni conquista San Francisco con il suo Dante

di Silvia Bizio, Repubblica — 28 maggio 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Dante, Berlusconi, Vittorio Emanuele: un Roberto Benigni in grandissima forma non ha risparmiato lodi e stoccate nel debutto della sua tournée americana “Tutto Dante” a San Francisco, dove è stato accolto come una rockstar. Era la sua unica apparizione sulla costa ovest e in molti non sono riusciti a entrare all’ auditorio Davies Symphony Hall. Benigni ha fatto lo show nel suo inglese maccheronico avvalendosi della traduzione elettronica quando ha recitato il V Canto dell’ Inferno. Per due ore e mezzo ha tenuto banco passando da Berlusconi agli scandali italiani, dall’ amore che gli sprizza da tutti i pori (sono “scombussolated”) alla sua giovinezza studiando Dante. «Benigni a San Francisco che fa Dante Alighieri in inglese è come Jim Carrey a Roma che recita Walt Whitman in italiano», esclama. Poi approda al caso Noemi: «In genere quando uno vuole uscire con una ragazza la porta a cena fuori: lui le offre il ministero della Difesa!». Poi tocca a Vittorio Emanuele: «Che figura mi fa fare! my king, il mio re! Vuole le ragazze, ma che costino poco».

Al termine dello spettacolo Benigni la star ha fatto una breve apparizione al party in suo onore: «Ho la febbre, sono esausto, so che il mio inglese va molto migliorato, ma non volevo fare lo spettacolo solo per gli italiani. Confesso però che non mi aspettavo una folla del genere, mi sono davvero emozionato».

A bundle of energy and a blessing to the ears, Roberto Benigni read Dante’s Divine Comedy Inferno in San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall on May 26, 2009.
Roberto’s performance is impeccable and soothing to the soul. A gracious reminder of Dante’s poetry’s eternal beauty and Benigni’s gripping storytelling.
Thank you Roberto, for all you do!
Enza Sebastiani ‘09
www.enzasebastiani.com

(L’Espresso - Oltreconfine di Federica Bianchi) - Roberto Benigni è un concentrato di italianità buona che non smette di caricare e eccitare le folle. Lo show di ieri sera a San Francisco e’ andato esaurito. Tanti, tantissimi gli italiani in platea ma anche una buona manciata di americani “puri” che ne ammirano l’arte e il coraggio. E si perche’ ce ne vuole di coraggio per tenere banco in un inglese maccheronico per oltre due ore spiegando prima i retroscena della politica berlusconiana e poi il sesto canto dell’Inferno. Chiaramente non tutto cio’ che ha detto e’ stato perfettamente compreso, e forse un buon manager americano potrebbe indirizzarlo meglio verso le battute che funzionano e quelle che fanno flop da queste parti, ma in generale la sua performance e’ stata grandiosa.
E ha ricordato al mondo che gli italiani non sono tutti copie o controfigure di Berlusconi. Prossima tappa: sabato a New York! Roberto, sei tutti noi!

A great comment posted on our Facebook Group “TuttoDante di Roberto Benigni“:

Frank Ruffa (Silicon Valley, CA) wrote:
I was lucky enough to have seen Benigni in San Francisco last night at the Davies Symphony Hall. The final, extended standing ovation spoke volumes about the profound emotions he elicited from the spectators. I only wish we could see all of his performances on TV or … DVD. Men and women who don’t know Dante’s work are lacking the equivalent of the missing link between savagery and humanity - Benigni was born to enrich us by, as he puts it, extending our minds and souls beyond the mundane confines of our materialistic lives.
BRAVO, Roberto! You’re not only an Italian National Treasure; you should be honored by the United Nations as a World Heritage ‘Reawakener of the Soul”.
Grazie!!!!!!!!

“If you’re going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”……

If you’re going to see Roberto Benigni in San Francisco, be sure to write and send your comments/reviews/photos to www.unbenignidanobel.it .

[Send a message to info@unbenignidanobel.it - we'll publish your articles in our website.]

Roberto Benigni is making his American stage debut at the Davies Symphony Hall on May 26 in San Francisco with his one-man show TuttoDante.

Roberto Benigni in TuttoDante

Where: Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco

*The first live comments from Twitter during and after the show:

- Benigni wonders why no the bidet in his hotel? Troppo Forte!

- The only thing that I didn’t like was that the sow had to finish! Thanks Roberto Benigni!!!!! (Giovanna)

Tom Waits attended TuttoDante show in San Francisco, he was seen in the audience of Davies Symphony Hall.
In a recent interview, Roberto Benigni answered to a question about “Down by Law“: “[...] For me it was a dream, this is such a wonderful memory, such a wonderful souvenir. And what it is very rare, I met also Tom Waits and John Lurie, the musician and the singer, and we are still very close friends.“.

After the long weekend a little culture was in order. We went along to the Davies Symphony Hall to be entertained by the famous Italian comic Roberto Benigni.
After a very light-hearted and engagingly funny introduction and warm up. He led us all through a very deep and thought-provoking journey by walking us through the 3rd circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno. He finished off the evening with an inspired and heartfelt recitation from Dante.
[Credit: The Spotted Zebra]

…..Did you like TuttoDante show? Join our Facebook group “TuttoDante di Roberto Benigni“ (the group now has more than 1300 members).

(KGO Newstalk AM 810) - KGO’s Scott Lettieri brings us this report about TuttoDante, a one-man show by the world-renowned Roberto Benigni. Coming to San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall in May, the show is “About love! About sex! About passions!” exclaims Roberto.
Here is Scott’s interview with the extremely vivacious director and actor.

LISTEN TO THE RADIO INTERVIEW with Roberto Benigni:

(ANSA) - WASHINGTON, 23 MAG - Roberto Benigni torna in tournee in America con TuttoDante che prendera’ il via il 26 maggio con il debutto a San Francisco. Il quotidiano New York Times racconta oggi ”l’altra faccia” dell’artista, quella dello studioso letterario: ”Benigni e’ noto agli americani come il comico scatenato che ha vinto tre Oscar nel 1999 con il film ‘La Vita e’ Bella’ ma il suo interesse di studioso per Dante e La Divina Commedia, e’ ancora praticamente sconosciuto agli americani”.

Benigni’s U.S. tour will kick off in San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall on Tuesday. “Dante” plays in New York’s Manhattan Center’s Hammerstein Ballroom on May 30, Boston’s Berklee Performing Center on June 6 and Chicago’s Harris Theater on June 12.

*Here’s a recap of the news for the past week:

- INTERVIEW: “Roberto Benigni Will Send You Straight To Hell” - Vanity Fair

- “HELL’S KITCHEN” - The New Yorker

- RADIO INTERVIEW: KGO AM 810 Newstalk Radio, San Francisco

- “TuttoDante with Roberto Benigni” - San Francisco Chronicle

- Roberto Benigni Interview - A.V. Club

- “Roberto Benigni porta Dante in America” - Reuters Italia

- “Italian showman Benigni brings Dante to America” - Reuters

By BEN SISARIO
Published: May 22, 2009 - The New York Times

Roberto Benigni leapt up with a riff on the 26th Canto of Dante’s “Inferno,” in which fraudulent advisers are engulfed by flames that scorch them. “It’s like landing in Los Angeles or Manhattan, full of little lights like a skyscraper,” he exclaimed in his frenetically choppy English. “Dante describes the lights like fireflies, like a farmer who sees billions of fireflies. And every single firefly is hiding a fraud — people like Madoff. Very cunning, very shrewd. These people are hiding inside the flame because they are hiding in life. The Florentines, you know, they invented finances.”

The delivery is familiar: Mr. Benigni, of course, is the endearingly manic Italian comedian whose Holocaust tragicomedy, “Life Is Beautiful,” won three Oscars in 1999. But for Americans, at least, the subject of Mr. Benigni’s latest project is almost incongruously new. Next week he will begin a short North American tour of “TuttoDante,” a monologue about Dante’s “Divine Comedy” that mixes literary insights with off-the-cuff political jokes. In Italy, where he has been doing the show regularly for three years, it has drawn more than a million people.

“We need to have the nerve to understand why a man with a big nose 700 years ago had the heroic shamelessness to write,” Mr. Benigni, 56, said in an interview the other day at a Manhattan hotel. “Really this is the most daring, bold poetry ever. In 2,000 years of Christian poetry they never surpassed this. They never produced such a scandal of beauty. Never, never, nobody.”

Mr. Benigni’s love of poetry has never been a secret. In “Down by Law,” the 1986 Jim Jarmusch film that introduced Mr. Benigni to American audiences, he cites Walt Whitman and “Bob Frost.” Collecting his Oscar when “Life Is Beautiful” won best foreign film in 1999, he quoted Dante and Blake (after climbing over the seats and blurting, “I want to kiss everybody!”).

“This face that he puts forward as a sort of clown is only a very small percentage of Roberto’s personality,” said Mr. Jarmusch, who also cast Mr. Benigni in “Night on Earth,” from 1991, and in a segment in the 2003 compilation film “Coffee and Cigarettes,” and who remains a close friend.

“TuttoDante” (“Everything About Dante”) introduces Americans to the savant-intellectual side of Mr. Benigni. In each performance he recites a canto in Italian from memory, with detailed explications of poetics and history in English.

For this tour, which begins in San Francisco on Tuesday and comes to the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York next Saturday, Mr. Benigni will perform Canto V from “Inferno,” with the story of Paolo and Francesca, the adulterers who spend eternity tossed by gales of lust.

“He’s a natural scholar,” said Robert Hollander, the Princeton professor. “He calls, and we just talk about Dante. He calls from Rome and says, ‘Bob, what do you think about this passage?’ ” Mr. Benigni wrote a preface for an edition of “Inferno” translated by Mr. Hollander and his wife, Jean, in which he asks whether Dante has been receiving royalty checks in Purgatory.

Mr. Benigni says he sees himself primarily as an entertainer, not a teacher. That means a lot of political jokes, often about his old nemesis, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. Mr. Benigni mocked him relentlessly during Mr. Berlusconi’s first term of office in the 1990s, and he clearly relishes the chance to banish Mr. Berlusconi to Dante’s depths.

“You know, Berlusconi, he passed a lot of laws just for him, just for one man,” he said. “So maybe his punishment could be to build for him a circle in hell, but very personal, just for him: ‘Eh, this is just for you, Mr. Berlusconi!’ ”

“TuttoDante” could also be seen as a kind of purgatory for Mr. Benigni, or perhaps a way out of one. Since “Life Is Beautiful,” which grossed $229 million around the world, his movie career has stumbled. There was no shortage of offers from Hollywood, but Mr. Benigni said that most roles were Italian stereotypes like the pizza man or the Mafioso. He was even urged to make a “Life Is Beautiful” sequel.

“Never in my life will I do this,” Mr. Benigni said, shaking his head.

So he continued making movies in Italy, but with mixed results. “Pinocchio,” in 2002, was a moderate hit in Italy but did poorly elsewhere. Mr. Benigni’s decision to cast himself — then 50 years old — as the puppet boy struck many critics as perverse. “The Tiger and the Snow,” from 2005, which Mr. Benigni also directed, did even worse at the box office.

“Maybe sometimes I have been wrong with some movies,” he said. “Anyway, I try to do my best. I was sincere. I was honest. But I am sure this path that I took is the right path.”

After “The Tiger and the Snow” he began to devote himself to the Dante readings. And although he said he is eager to return to filmmaking (“I would like to make not a divine comedy but a comedy”), Dante is his foreseeable future: requests for the show, he said, keep pouring in, from Korea and Japan, from South America, from towns in Italy he has not been to yet.

“Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary,” he said. “If was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown — very much.”

A version of this article appeared in print on May 23, 2009, on page C1 of the New York edition.

Roberto Benigni Is Set to Make His North American Stage Debut With the Critically Acclaimed One-Man Show — TuttoDante — in San Francisco May 26, Continuing on to New York, Montreal, Boston, Toronto, Quebec City and Chicago

LOS ANGELES, CA - Two-time Academy Award-winner (1999) for Best Actor and Best Foreign Film and nominee for Best Director and Best Writer, for “Life is Beautiful” ROBERTO BENIGNI is making his US stage debut at the Davies Symphony Hall on May 26 in San Francisco with his one-man show “TuttoDante.” Roberto’s unique creation is a fascinating journey that extends from current and daily events to the Divine Comedy. From moments of pure humor to moments of breathtaking poetry — in particular Canto V° from “The Inferno,” Dante’s medieval, cosmos-bestriding epic of sin, salvation and eternity.

Benigni has been perfecting his one-man show in his native Italy for the past 3 years, where more than one million passionate fans cheered in delight. Now, after spectacular appearances to sold out theatres in Paris and London, Benigni performs his show in English, peppered with Italian and for the finale, he will recite the Fifth Canto in its original medieval Italian.

The Canto V° describes the tragic love story between Paolo and Francesca, condemned for the sin of lust to pass eternity on the first of the descending rings of hell.

“TuttoDante” has received rave reviews all across Italy, as well as in England for his recent London performance.

“Benigni has long been a national hero in Italy,” notes the UK’s “Telegraph.” “Climbing over the seats to collect his two Oscar for the 1999 tragicomedy “La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful)” was only the most conspicuous of his acts of iconoclasm. Since the 1970s he has been adored as a satirist of Italy’s politicians. But, over the past three years, he has added to his hero status through his touring show dedicated to Italy’s medieval literary giant, Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy… By the time he reached the final section — a recitation of the poem itself… He recited the words so animatedly, but with such reverence for the 11 syllable lines, that it was like listening to great music. Millions of Italians have so far risen to their feet to cheer at the end of this show; this evening was no exception.”

“By the time it came to the Divine Comedy’s Fifth Canto… There was pin-drop silence as Benigni switched from passionate… to controlled, near operatic delivery. Even for fans with minimal grasp of Italian the beauty of the poetry was apparent.” “Evening Standard”

Of the Italian show, critics declared:

“Benigni has been able to enchant… the audience, leaving it in ecstasy, speechless, perhaps, surprised by such emotion.” “La Repubblica”

“Climbing through the ages, he miraculously combines yesterday with today, current events with poetry, anger with laughter.” “Corriere della Sera”

“A small miracle, considering the amount of people Benigni has brought to the Divine Comedy.” “Variety” (US edition)

And, judging from the sold-out box offices for every stage on the tour, from the long applause and standing ovations that conclude each evening, “a small miracle” may have actually occurred, as Roberto Benigni says, “The poetry is not only in who writes, but especially in the ear of whom listens.”

“TuttoDante” starring Roberto Benigni is a majestic life-affirming evening performed in English, peppered with Italian, while the finale of the Fifth Canto will be in Italian.

DATE…………CITY/STATE………….VENUE
Tues. May 26 - San Francisco, CA Davies Symphony Hall
Sat. May 30 - New York, NY Manhattan Center-Hammerstein Ballroom
Tues./Wed. June 3 & 4 - Montreal, Quebec, Canada St. Denise Theatre
Sat. June 6 - Boston, MA Berklee Performance Center
Sun. June 7 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada Casino Rama
Wed. June 10 - Quebec City, Canada Gran Theatre de Quebec
Fri. June 12 - Chicago, IL Harris Theatre

Roberto Benigni - Μέγαρο Μουσικής Αθηνών

Στην Αθήνα θα βρεθεί στις αρχές Μαϊου (5 και 6) ο βραβευμένος με Όσκαρ ηθοποιός Roberto Benigni, για να παρουσιάσει στο Μέγαρο Μουσικής Αθηνών τον μονόλογο “Κόλαση και Παράδεισος”, που βασίζεται στην “Θεία Κωμωδία” του Δάντη. Από τα τρία μέρη του ιταλικού επικού ποιήματος (”Κόλαση”, “Καθαρτήριο”,”Παράδεισος”) ο Benigni επέλεξε το πρώτο και σκηνοθετεί τον εαυτό του στο πέμπτο canto, που πραγματεύεται την αγάπη.

Roberto Benigni will be in Athens to present excerpts from Dante’s Divine Comedy in two performances at the Athens Concert Hall on 5 and 6 May.

The famous Italian comic and director, who received three Oscars for his film Life is Beautiful, is touring internationally with a performance called Inferno e Paradiso, which presents Hell, one of the three parts of the Divine Comedy. He has especially selected to present the 5th Canto, which addresses the meaning of love, for his appearance in Athens.

The Italian comic has directed many films and has starred in even more. His first public appearance came in the 1970s when he took part in a popular television show. He became more involved in directing in the 1980s, and his career reached a peak in 1997 with his direction of the tragic comedy, Life is Beautiful.

This time, the audience will enjoy the Italian actor in Dante’s Divine Comedy, considered one of the most important literary works in the world. It has been called the “epitome of the medieval world.”

Dates: 5,6 May 2009
Start time: 20:30
Venue: Athens Concert Hall, Megaron Mousikis

*Are you going to see TuttoDante in Athens? After seeing the show, write and send your personal review/comments to: info@unbenignidanobel.it …We’ll publish your articles in this blog.

*Per coloro che assisteranno allo spettacolo: inviateci i vostri commmenti e recensioni a: info@unbenignidanobel.it …Pubblicheremo tutto sul sito.

Roberto Benigni will bring his new project to Athens on May 5 and 6.

(Kathimerini) Roberto Benigni, the Italian actor and director who won us over in 1997 with his powerful performance as Guido in the Oscar-winning “Life is Beautiful,” is now launching a different project.

With a performance titled “Inferno e Paradiso” (Hell and Heaven), he is taking Dante’s landmark poem “The Divine Comedy” on an international tour that will include two stops at the Athens Concert Hall on May 5 and 6. For those interested, tickets are already available.

In his “Divine Comedy,” Dante describes an imaginary journey into the underworld, narrated in the first person, which starts on Good Friday in 1300. The use of detail makes the journey incredibly realistic – the hours and locations are recorded with mathematical precision. During his passing through Hell and Purgatory, the poet is accompanied by his teacher Virgil. His crossing of Heaven happens in the presence of Beatrice, a character who represents the female ideal, according to Dante, and who is probably based on Beatrice Portinari, a real person he was associated with.

Benigni is expected to make lots of reversals. The only thing known so far is that for his Athens performances, he has chosen the 5th Canto of “The Divine Comedy,” which deals with the concept of love.

Athens Concert Hall, 1 Kokkali & Vas. Sofias, tel 210.728.2333.

(The Teenage Theatre Critic) - My word this was something special. Dante’s Divine Comedy seems all the rage right now but Roberto Benigni’s “Tutto Dante” is about as far from Romeo Castellucci’s abysmal “Inferno” as it’s possible to conceive. From the off it was clear that the sheer energy and bravado of Benigni was going to be hard to resist. Seldom have I heard a man enthuse more about art and life than Benigni. Most in Britain would be embarrassed to express such love for the arts but he does it with such wild abandon that I couldn’t help but feel the same.

The opening half hour or so amounts to the most high-brow stand-up you’re ever going to come across. His English isn’t quite perfect (although it’s very impressive and he did the entire show effectively without notes) but his Tigger like energy and endless passion for everything he talked about made the slightest joke hysterical. He merely had to mention Silvio Berlusconi to have the entire audience crying with laughter. The tone shifts slowly into the more serious Dante content but the tone was never heavy with a constant stream of stories that never got dull.

He was most exposed when he got to the nitty gritty of the text and often shifted into Italian, although he tried hard not too and considering the huge proportion of the audience who spoke the language it didn’t much matter either way, but from a non-speaker it became a little confusing. His real love for the subject was entirely evident however no matter what he was saying or in what language. When he finally read the passage (Canto V of Inferno) it was like hearing a great Shakespearean actor declaiming for all his worth. I could only cursorily understand, although single words were enough to jog my memory of the hour long lesson that had preceeded. Lesson is really the wrong word; if all my lessons had been this compelling I’d be a much smarter guy than I am.

Benigni is a great entertainer but he’s also a fabulous educator, producing pearl after pearl of fascinating insight whether directly linked to Dante or not. The remarkably easy mix of comedy with textual analysis is shockingly impressive; I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything quite like this before. I left the theatre feeling that not only had I enjoyed myself thoroughly but that I’d learnt something worthwhile and even more curiously felt better about the world we live in. “TuttoDante” is a majestic, life affirming evening, a journey I’d take over and over again if I had the chance. I couldn’t have higher praise for Roberto Benigni, a true genius.

Posted by The Teenage Theatre Critic at 07:00, 6 april 2009

Italian national hero, Benigni, delivers one-man show Tutto Dante - a comical yet serious enterprise.

By Cassandra Jardine (The Telegraph)

The atmosphere at Roberto Benigni’s one-man show Tutto Dante (”Everything about Dante”) was more akin to a football match than a night at the theatre. With tutti gli Italiani in the UK, it seemed, assembled at the Theatre Royal, there were whoops and stamping feet before the man himself even bounced on stage, accompanied by circus music and whirling lights.

Benigni has long been a national hero in Italy. Climbing over the seats to collect his Oscar for the 1997 tragicomedy La Vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful) was only the most conspicuous of his acts of iconoclasm. Since the 1970s he has been adored as a satirist of Italy’s politicians. But, over the past three years, he has added to his hero status through his touring show dedicated to Italy’s medieval literary giant, Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy.

But before Benigni got down to the serious business of the evening, he acted as his own warm-up artist. His jokes about Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi raised easy laughs, but were none the less funny for that – not least because he delivered them in English. The advance publicity had said that the show would be in Italian, with no surtitles (because he improvises), so the shift was greeted with relief from the minority of the Brits – and sighs of disappointment from the Italians. “It will be like Mr Bean in Rome talking about Milton,” said Benigni. But despite his comic delivery, this was a serious enterprise, a homage to a great era of 13th- and 14th-century Italian culture.

In the years immediately before Dante (1265-1321) was writing, he explained, the Florentines (of whom Benigni is one) gave us our banking system (ho, ho), the piano and violin, the artistic breakthroughs of Giotto and the lettered notes in which our music is written. To him, however, The Divine Comedy is the period’s crowning achievement, the first poem in which the author uses “I” and reflects contemporary life.

Having never got much further than the famous first line: “Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita,” my Italian became increasingly stretched as he explained various nuances of his chosen section, the Fifth Canto of the Inferno which deals with lechery.

By the time he reached the final section – a recitation of the poem itself – I was out of my depth. It didn’t matter. He recited the words so animatedly, but with such reverence for the 11-syllable lines, that it was like listening to great music. Millions of Italians have so far risen to their feet to cheer at the end of this show; this evening was no exception.

A review by Bruce Dessau, This Is London - 06.04.09

Diminutive actor/comedian Roberto Benigni is best known here for his Oscar-winning role in controversial holocaust film Life Is Beautiful.

In his native Italy, however, he is also famed for his live performances entitled TuttoDante, in which he celebrates his country’s Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri. The show visited London last night for a brief stopover and his enchanting appearance in front of a largely partisan crowd made the Theatre Royal feel more like La Scala.

Before a recital from the Divine Comedy this charismatic clown displayed the idiosyncratic storytelling skills that have made him a superstar. In a mix of Italian and broken English he immediately won over a crowd by excitably explaining that he was “discombololated, frabbergasted, boohaha”— his eccentric verbal gymnastics echoing his physical antics when he clambered over seats to accept his Academy Award in 1998.

A demonstration of his satirical streak came in a succession of crowd-pleasing swipes at the shouty Italian Prime Minister accompanied by a playful smile so wide it could engulf St Peters in Rome: “I thought I was the first Italian in London making a solo show, but Mr Berlusconi preceded me” he grinned. Home affairs did not escape either, with his reference to “two cassettes pornographico”.

Even with the serious business of Dante, Benigni could not resist more gags, alluding to biblical mother-in-law jokes and claiming that purgatory was invented by a pope to make more money by having more masses.

As for the notion of performing in English, he perfectly described it as being akin to “Mr Bean talking about John Milton in Italian”.

By the time he came to the Divine Comedy’s Fifth Canto, proceedings had overrun but no one was complaining. There was pin-drop silence as Benigni switched from passionate babbling to controlled, near-operatic delivery. Even for fans with minimal grasp of Italian the beauty of the poetry was apparent.

If there was a fault it was the title. TuttoDante means “everything about Dante”. This was all about the man on stage.

Al Jazzera English - Roberto Benigni interviewed on “Frost over the world”:

Roberto Benigni jumping over the backs of the plush chairs to get to the stage to collect his Oscar for “Life is beautiful” has remained one of the iconographic moments in the history of the Academy Awards, together with his acceptance speech, delivered in his unique patois. Since then, he has consolidated his reputation in Europe as one of the very few real original artists working in entertainment, not scared of venturing in the field of biting and topical political satire.

Roberto’s deep love for Dante’s Divine Comedy brought him to devise an entire show centred on this work, with humorous excursions in every possible direction. His Dante has proven to be a total cultural sensation, creating the demand for a worldwide tour and succeeding in the mean feat of bringing what was conceived as the most sublime of popular culture back to the people.
This jubilant moment of Divine zeitgeist will have its London debut at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on the 5th of April, when Roberto Benigni will appear live for his one-man show spanning from Politics to the Meaning of Life, from the Nature of Truth to the Truth that only Beauty can offer.

“Winning my Oscar was an ‘Azzurro’ moment. I was full of joy like a watermelon!”

This morning, on BBC Radio 4, the journalist Fi Glover interviewed Roberto Benigni - who is in London for his one-man show TuttoDante currently on World Tour - about his “Inheritance Tracks“: he referred to “Casta Diva” (Vincenzo Bellini) sang by Maria Callas, and “Azzurro” by Paolo Conte and Adriano Celentano.

Click here to listen to this nice interview:

On BBC Radio 3 (Tuesday, March 31st) Roberto Benigni talked about his one-man theatre show about Dante’s Divine Comedy which has been filling stadiums in Italy and is now coming to London (Drury Lane Theatre) as part of a worldwide tour.

Bidisha (BBC Radio 3) talks to Oscar-winning Italian actor Roberto Benigni - best known for his comic film set during the Holocaust, Life Is Beautiful - about his obsession with Dante and his one-man show TuttoDante. Benigni is often remembered outside Italy for his behaviour at the 1998 Academy Awards when accepting the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Life Is Beautiful - he climbed on the backs of the seats for his procession to the stage and applauded the audience.

Benigni is regarded in Italy as an excellent improvisatory poet and he can recite Dante’s Divine Comedy from memory. His one-man theatre show inspired by the Divine Comedy and mixed with observations on current affairs and his own past experiences has been a huge success in Italy. TuttoDante (Everything about Dante) was seen on television by more than ten million people. Bidisha asks whether something so Italian can make the transfer to Britain.

ROBERTO BENIGNI “TUTTODANTE” - WORLD TOUR 2009

at the ROYAL DRURY THEATRE, LONDON - 5th APRIL 2009

This show will be in Italian and English

A POETIC JOURNEY BASED ON ONE OF THE WORLD MOST FAMOUS WORKS OF LITERATURE: “THE DIVINE COMEDY”

On Sunday the 5th of April all the people in the UK will have the chance to see Roberto Benigni, one of the most loved and internationally renowned Italian star, performing live on stage his acclaimed rendition of the fifth canto of the Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Benigni’s one man show combines current events, personal recollections narrated with a great deal of irony, and a poetic and passionate journey through the world of the Divine Comedy.
The show debuted in June 2006 in the Roman theatre on Patras in Greece, where Benigni read and explained Canto XXVI of the Inferno, devoted to Odysseus, before an enraptured audience. In July of 2006 he performed for 13 nights in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, next to Dante’s statue. Reciting a different canto every night, he drew over 4000 people to each performance.
After his success in Florence, Benigni took TuttoDante on a tour across Italy, staging a total of 130 shows in numerous piazzas, arenas, and stadiums and attracting an estimated audience of one million spectators. Commenting on the affection, appreciation, and enthusiasm demonstrated by his audiences Benigni said: “It’s been an incredible work; I’ll treasure this experience as one of the sweetest, most popular, and emotional memories of my life.” Variety called TuttoDante “a little miracle.” Roberto Benigni’s unprecedented effort to disseminate Dante’s poetry earned him a nomination for a Nobel Prize in literature in 2007.

TuttoDante is a unique event, a fascinating voyage that spans from current events to the Divine Comedy, from moments of pure comedy to moments of breathtaking poetry.

Show time: 08.30 pm doors: 07.00 pm

Advanced tickets : www.seetickets.com

*”The Divine Comedy“, written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem’s imaginative and allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian standard.

Last night Roberto Benigni was a guest at the popular “Graham Norton Show” live on BBC TWO, England. Roberto was invited to speak about his one-man show TuttoDante (Everything About Dante), coming to London, Theatre Drury Lane, on Sunday the 5th of April.

Cick here to view the entire video of the show.

*YouTube clips with the best moments of the show:

The Italian comic is taking Dante on a world tour with his TuttoDante and London’s his next stop.

By Alastair Smart, 31 March 2009 - Telegraph.co.uk

He shot to movie stardom in 1998 with his concentration-camp comedy Life is Beautiful, and Italian funnyman Roberto Benigni is now attempting the improbable once again: a one-man, stage rendition of The Divine Comedy, Dante’s cosmos-bestriding, medieval epic of sin, salvation and the everlasting. The clown prince of Italy, famous for stripteasing on television and writing songs such as Hymn to Loosened Bowels, has spent the past three years reciting Dante’s theological terza rimas in arenas across Italy. And now there’s a world tour.

‘At heart, The Divine Comedy is popular entertainment not an academic text,’ says Benigni. ‘Besides the God, Virgin Mary and Thomas Aquinas stuff, there’s Laurel-and-Hardy farce in there, too. It’s not called a “comedy” for nothing.’ Because of the august, bowdlerised translations of Victorian times, Dante has come down to English-speakers today as a rather fustian, Christian moraliser but, in certain scenes in hell, he gets pretty ribald. One can only imagine what fun the goofy-grinned, gangly-bodied Benigni will have with Canto XXI, in which 10 devils try poking Dante up the ‘groppone’ with their pitchforks, and their leader – the aptly named Stinky Tail – breaks wind ‘like a trumpet’ to call them to attention.

‘Dante’s not just funny, though; he’s contemporary, too’, insists Benigni, trying to explain the huge popularity of his TuttoDante shows, which have been watched by one million Italians. By the early 14th century, Dante’s home city of Florence had become the international capital of trade and banking, and the poet lamented how many of his corrupted peers - especially popes - valued riches over religion. ‘He places the gluttonous and greedy in hell … [to wallow] in excrement like pigs,’ says Benigni. In this, the age of the fallen banker, ‘their story couldn’t be more modern’.

In a 90-minute show, Benigni hasn’t time to recount Dante’s entire poetic journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, so he picks out and performs 10 passages instead, explaining the context and present-day parallels of each beforehand. In these secular times, it’s perhaps unsurprising the Inferno passages prove most popular: ‘They’re the most human’, says Benigni, ‘the ones in which we all see our weaknesses.’ But Italian audiences also love Hell for the modern celebs Benigni suggests sending there, notably his long-standing foe Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian PM has been the butt of countless Benigni barbs down the years, and there’s no let-up in TuttoDante - in a show last year, the comedian declared that the imperious Berlusconi would have a ‘circle to himself’ in Hell, with ‘his own set of laws’.

Benigni promises to make his targets more international on TuttoDante’s world tour, which comes to Drury Lane next Sunday, though he doesn’t know yet who they’ll be: ever the comic improviser – remember the mad clambering over seats, on his way to collect his Best Actor Oscar for Life is Beautiful? – all Benigni can confirm is that, Dante excerpts aside, he’ll deliver the show in English. But might the time also be right to readdress the hell of the Holocaust, which many felt Benigni trivialised, sentimentalised and pantomimed in Life is Beautiful? Benigni, a Catholic, played a jovial Jew who convinces his young son their death-camp travails are just an elaborate game. ‘My movie was actually a tragedy, about a father trying to save his son from horror; it had humour in it, but I wasn’t laughing at or diminishing the Holocaust,’ says Benigni. ‘The Jews are the world’s wittiest people, so if anyone can make a comedy about the Holocaust, it’s them.’

The Divine Comedy (1314-1320) is, in a sense, as old as the Italian language itself – it was Dante who broke the centuries-old tradition of writing in scholars’ Latin, to use vernacular Italian instead – but Benigni reckons he is well qualified to deliver it as freshly as ever: growing up in rural Tuscany, an hour outside Florence, he took up early the Tuscan tradition of publicly reciting poetry, especially that of the local hero Dante. ‘My grandma was better, though’ he says. ‘She could recite the entire Divine Comedy backwards.’

‘TuttoDante’, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London WC2 (0844 412 4657) Apr 5

Sabato 14 marzo su BBC Radio 4 è stata mandata in onda un’intervista a Roberto Benigni che ha parlato del suo show TuttoDante in scena a Londra domenica 6 aprile 2009.

Saturday 14 March 2009 (BBC Radio 4, London) - The Italian actor and comedian Roberto Benigni, who won an Oscar for his role in the film Life is Beautiful, is taking his one-man show TuttoDante (Everything About Dante) on tour. He explains the show, which is a satire inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.

——————————————-

TUTTODANTE live in London:

Date: Sunday, April 05, 2009

Opening times: show time: 08.30pm - doors: 07.00pm

Venue: Drury Lane Theatre, Catherine Street, London, WC2B 5JF

(AfterEllen.com) For those who live outside Italy and haven’t heard of San Remo it is a huge music festival held each year in, you’ve guessed it, San Remo on the Italian Riviera. It is a massive event aired live on Italy’s conservative RAI 1 tv and radio channels. Roberto Benigni, the multi award winning Italian director/actor/writer, took to the stage tasked with providing a comic interlude. In his usual inimitable style - passionate, eloquent, intelligent - Benigni made several jokes (including advising Berlusconi that the only way he can become truly legendary is to disappear, never to be seen again) before becoming more serious. He spoke of homosexuality as something to be considered normal. He spoke of the disgraceful, shameful treatment of homosexuals, of the discrimination that is particularly present in Italy today. Gay rights are virtually non-existent in Italy partly due to the Vatican’s continual preaching of homosexuality as a sin. Benigni’s response to this: “Homosexuality is not a sin, stupidity is” - a comment which was met with a standing ovation from much of the audience. He continued by saying that fundamentally anyone who descriminates against homosexuality is descriminating against love. If someone is in love, what does it matter if the beloved is of the same or opposite sex? He finished by reciting a letter from Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, written by Wilde while he was incarcerated and dedicated to his young lover. The strength and profundity of the love between two people is all that matters. For those of you who speak Italian, Benigni’s speech can be found here: http://www.musiczone.it/festival-concerti/roberto-benigni-sanremo-video.html

Italy lags far behind its European neighbours, but it seems that homosexuality and bisexuality are not the taboo subjects they once were. A recent daytime tv talk show introduced the topic of married women falling for other women, but in true Italian style the programme ended with panellists deciding that these are “temporary infatuations” and that women will always put their men and family first. Italy still has a long way to go, but it looks like change may be in the air…

The Conferment of the Degree of Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa) on Maestro Roberto Benigni was held at the Church of the University, Valletta on 22nd April, 2008.

Oration by Dr Gloria Lauri-Lucente:
Click here for English version
Click here for Italian version

Robert Hollander testing Roberto Benigni about La Divina Commedia.

*”La lingua italiana è in grande espansione nelle scuole americane. Le pubblicazioni dell’Inferno e del Purgatorio si vanno moltiplicando negli Stati Uniti, grazie alle stupende traduzioni come quella del mio amico Robert Hollander, il massimo esperto dantesco in America” (Roberto Benigni, Chicago, 2003)

Here are some interesting extracts from the article by Nicholas Desai published on The Dartmouth Review on July 16, 2007. Robert Hollander speaks about Dante and his great appreciation of Roberto Benigni’s readings.

[...] Robert Hollander has taught his course on the Comedy here at Dartmouth before in 1979 and 1982, though he is on the faculty of Princeton, from which he graduated in 1955. A well-recognized Dantist for decades, he has written scholarly articles and books, but only this year will his greatest contribution to the field be completed: a collaboration with his wife, the poet Jean Hollander, on a translation and detailed, line-by-line commentary on the poem. Unlike other scholars and poets who have written their translations in blank verse or the terza rima used by Dante himself, the Hollanders have chosen the less constricting form of free verse; their lines appear side-by-side with the original Italian. The rich notes following each canto deliver both necessary background to the events of the Comedy as well as a clearly stated explication de texte.
[...] In his estimation, The Divine Comedy is the world’s greatest poem. “It’s beautifully structured, it’s got complex thought, and it has a vision of God for the climax—I mean, you want more? Tell me where I can go buy it.”
[...] If he meets people in a café or on a train, and they ask him what he, an American, is doing in Italy, his response often astounds them, for why would an American study Dante? “Almost all of the ordinary Italians—businessmen, working people—say, ‘I hated Dante in school!’ ‘That’s because you weren’t taught right,’ I respond. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, for instance, you were taught that Virgil represented “reason,” right?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, that’s totally incorrect.’ And they go bonkers—becoming either angry or interested.”
It is perhaps because of Hollander’s belief that the poem belongs to the people that he speaks with such admiration of Roberto Benigni, the Italian director and actor. Known to Americans mostly for his film Life is Beautiful, the man has lately embarked on a quest to bring Dante to people “who have banished him from their lives,” as Hollander puts it. Though he admits he and the director are “about as different as two people can be,” the professor feels that they are the same in at least two respects: their lack of interest in playing to received opinion and their passion for Dante. During a meeting, Hollander told Benigni that if he offered him a chair in Dante studies at a university, the man would drop show business and become a full-time scholar. “He laughed, he didn’t say anything—but I still think that’s right.”
On Christmas 2002, Italian state radio/TV decided, against their better judgment, to give Benigni an hour and a half for Dante recitation—by memory, of course. Hollander recalls that about thirteen or fourteen million people tuned in—an immense percentage of the Italian population. In Hollander’s estimation, Benigni recites Dante as well as it can be done. He doesn’t overdramatize: “He just lets the poem work on you; he releases the poem into the air.” Benigni continues to recite around Italy, appearing recently for two nights (there were traffic jams) at the Arena di Verona, an immense Roman amphitheater which Hollander suspects is the model for the stadium in paradise. Hollander once snuck into the Arena during a horse show, making believe he was involved in the show, and stood in the middle of the amphitheater floor and looked up, saying “My God! It’s Paradiso!”
[...] Throughout our conversation, Hollander returns most often not to arcane academic disputes but to the popular recitations of Benigni.
“So, here’s this actor reciting it to a studio audience, and the whole thing started out as typical Benigni. He was running around like a little boy–it’s one of his personae, the little boy-clown. He was dancing on the stage. And all of a sudden he starts talking about Dante, and it took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to his recital, and that went for about seven minutes, beginning “Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio…” and going on for 145 lines of that canto; when he got to the end of it, there was this total silence and then no bravos. I don’t know about you, but anytime I hear “Bravo!” I sense fakery, either in the performance or in the audience or both—if you really get to people, they sit there stunned for a while. Total silence.
“Montaigne has a great line about moments of stirring virtue (he’s thinking of Cato, one of Dante’s heroes, too); these bring one to silent admiration and a sense of redirection, and he describes this moment as magnetized needles hanging in a chain. And that’s what happened that moment with Benigni. Everything stopped, and everything had meaning, and for one moment everything was understandable and beautiful, the way we wish it always were, and then this total, harnessed applause—no shouts—but serious applause.”

*See also…

• Readings of the final canto of “Paradiso” by Robert Hollander in English and Roberto Benigni in Italian.
• The Dartmouth Dante Project
• The Princeton Dante Project

Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
Volume 1: Inferno. Volume 2: Purgatorio. Volume 3: Paradiso. Translated by Robert and Jean Hollander, Verona, Italy Edizioni Valdonega 2007, slipcase 700 pages.

The English version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, printed by Edizioni Valdonega.

“Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost”.

E’ arrivata sugli scaffali mondiali “The Divine Comedy”, l’ultima fatica degli studiosi Robert e Jean Hollander, con un contributo speciale di Roberto Benigni, che firma una “Lettera a Dante” nella prefazione. Gli autori della traduzione in lingua inglese della Commedia di Dante sono Robert Hollander (*) e Jean Hollander. Uniti nella vita e nella carriera letteraria, Robert e Jean hanno introdotto, tradotto e commentato ogni singola rima dantesca. Hollander ha raccontato che “Negli Stati Uniti ci sono persone che si incontrano tutte le domeniche per leggere ‘La Divina Commedia’. Purtroppo l’interesse è ancora circoscritto, ma Roberto Benigni sta facendo tanto per far conoscere il Sommo Poeta nel mondo”

For the edition printed in Verona at the beginning of the third millennium, Monika Beisner (**) lent her inspired hand; she is probably one of the first  women – if not the first – to illustrate Dante’s masterpiece, seven hundred years after it was first printed. A hundred colour plates, reproduced with great accuracy and fidelity to the colours, on velvety ivory-coloured paper (Gardapat 13 in the Klassica version of the Cartiere del Garda), help the reader to access and comprehend this poem, whose means of expression differ more and more from our day-to-day language – so much so that in the “strictly personal” preface, written in the form of a letter by the irrepressible actor and director Roberto Benigni, it is defined as “very difficult, mysterious, incomprehensible: I had to ask my illiterate grandparents to explain it to me before I could understand it.”
The English edition, which follows the Italian edition of two years ago, has been graced with a wonderful preface written by Roberto Benigni, which, as the saying goes, is worth the price of the ticket alone. Worried by inflation in Purgatory, which could damage him in the eyes of his muse, Benigni speaks directly to Dante in order to recognise his ownership of the rights to the work. Benigni is currently touring Italy with the work and has already performed Cantica V of the Inferno to over seven hundred thousand fans in the main city squares of Italy.
This is the strength of this timeless masterpiece: it excites the minds of artists like the Tuscan jester Benigni and it has generations of ordinary people stuck to their seats listening excitedly to its rhythms and rhymes. 

The English edition, translated by one of the greatest experts on Dante in the world – Robert Hollander, who worked hard alongside his wife Jean on the translation – will be distributed on the American market. In his humorous and ironic preface, Benigni said of the Hollanders’ version that it is “a masterpiece, so good that when I read it again in Italian, I though the Italian version was the translation!” What better endorsement?
Laid out using the Centaur font in the Stamperia Valdonega Group’s special VAL version, the English version has been printed in a limited edition of five hundred numbered copies in collaboration with Grafiche Siz, part of the same corporate group.

(*) Roberto Benigni and Prof. Robert Hollander, will be conducting a Serata Dantesca on April 23 at the University’s Sir Temi Zammit Hall in Malta.
During his visit Benigni will be conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by the University, on the initiative of the Faculty of Arts. On April 23 the evening will start with a discussion on Dante between Benigni and the eminent Dante scholar Robert Hollander, Professor of European Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and the founding director of the Princeton Dante Project. Following the discussion, Benigni will give a much-anticipated recitation of one of his favourite “canti” from the Divina Commedia.

(**) While in Malta, Benigni will also be inaugurating an exhibition of illustrations of the Divina Commedia by the artist Monika Beisner at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Valletta. The illustrations form part of a translation into English of the Divina Commedia by Robert and Jean Hollander with a Preface by Roberto Benigni published by Edizioni Valdonega in 2007.