Devised as a ‘video oratorio’ and first presented in Groningen in September 2001 (on which occasion this live recording was made) Veldhuis takes episodes from the third book of Dante’s Divine Comedy and casts them in a decidedly contemporary mould. So we have Dante and Beatrice flying to the moon with the astronauts of Apollo XII, rubbing shoulders with American TV evangelists, stumbling across, as Veldhuis puts it, ‘the considerably stoned trumpet player Chet Baker’ and indulging in violent sexual gratification. All these bits and pieces of contemporary experience appear as sampled voices accompanied by lavish swathes of orchestral colour. Indeed so opulent and colourful are these orchestral accompaniments that one is tempted to suggest they could be off-cuts from a Hollywood music editing suite where John Williams has been working on something particularly epic. But in saying that I am also praising the slick North Netherlands Orchestra who produce ravishing playing in this live performance (or two).

The chorus is very much confined to a back seat, but the soloists have the almost Herculean task of injecting a touch of genuine humanity into the gushing, over-the-top images conjured up by orchestra and sampler. Tom Allen is stunning, singing with a purity and directness which magnificently conjures up the ‘chaste and modest’ character of Dante. And apart from some coarse top notes (Veldhuis does fire an unreasonable number at her) Claron McFadden makes a more than credible Beatrice; who is, after all, the one whose sexual gratification is portrayed in one of the work’s more vivid numbers.