Dante lovers unite!

This is the coolest:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Rome monsignor has composed an extravagant musical version of "The Divine Comedy," featuring symphonic music in heaven, Gregorian chant in purgatory and hard rock in hell.

That's not a value judgment on rock music -- it just seemed to fit the spirit of rebellion in Dante's description of the inferno, Msgr. Marco Frisina told Vatican Radio Jan. 4.

Msgr. Frisina, a liturgy official for the Diocese of Rome and a well-known composer of religious music, said the new work, "The Divine Comedy: The Opera," will use a 100-piece orchestra, 50 dancers and singers, and more than 250 costumes.

According to the opera's production company, Nova Ars, the set will be one of the biggest ever used for an operatic work and will be designed to allow audience interaction in some of the scenes.

The priest has dedicated the opera's musical score to Pope Benedict XVI and said he hopes the pontiff will attend the premiere in Rome next fall. The production is expected to tour Europe.

Msgr. Frisina already has stirred up controversy by saying he will put rock, punk and heavy metal music in hell.

"I'm simply using the music and sounds of rock to communicate that sense of laceration, drama and deep rebellion that rock music can express so well," he said.

"I needed rock music for the sounds in the city of Dis (the lowest part of hell), for the most violent part of Dante's inferno. But this is not a judgment about rock," he said.

The second half of the opera portrays the pilgrim's path through purgatory to paradise, and the music no longer expresses passion or desperation, but a "desire of the absolute," Msgr. Frisina said. Gregorian chant and symphonic harmony were the appropriate musical choices, he said.

Dante Alighieri's medieval poem, considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, imagines a journey through the three realms of the dead.

Casting for the musical production was to be completed in late January, according to Nova Ars.

Via Amy.