Inspired by the Divine Comedy, 700 years after it continues to fascinate lovers of literature around the world, Dante's Journey is an extraordinary recital by actor Emil Boroghina. The Poesis Theatre programme, supported by the Marin Sorescu National Theatre in Craiova and the Nottara Theatre, in partnership, is dedicated this year to the Year of Dante, bringing to the centre of our lives, for an hour and a quarter, the essential questions posed by the pandemic, the return to the self to which we have all been urged, forced, perhaps, by circumstances, to resort. Critic George Banu says: "In Emil Boroghina, what captivates is a cello-like sonority /.../: behind the verses we identify the subtly modulated discretion of a performer who exposes himself in all his humanity! The recital is also an emotional x-ray." So Dante Alighieri's wonderful text will be performed on the stage of the Nottara Theatre and the National Theatre of Craiova, in the form of poetry theatre, by actor Emil Boroghina.
„In essence, the Divine Comedy is nothing less than the marvellous poem of infinite love and the pain of the homeland. No one idolised his ungrateful but always adored homeland more than Dante Alighieri, a passionate singer of its magnificent beauties, which place it among the wonders of planet Earth, or of its glorious past history. No one has lamented her more deeply for her present misfortunes. This powerful voice of Italianness, added to the harmonious beauties of the poem, has made the Divine Comedy at once a national and universal poem.” – Alexandru Balaci
Excerpts from the chronicles:
- "Emil Boroghina succeeds on stage, in real time, synchronously, what Tarkovsky accomplished in the film, with the help of editing: to enter the Zone, the Space, to inhabit it, to suspend Time and offer that moment of Love, Hope and Truth. This juxtaposition of Faith is, for Emil Boroghina, a journey that is hard to imagine. (...) We witnessed a murmured prayer, unmurmured, without emphasis, a kind of transgression of perceptible planes and worlds. What a text and what a self-confession, what a load that places the artistic act of the master Boroghina in the zone of the miraculous, the divine! (...) Emil Boroghina sacrifices himself, consequently, like a martyr, becoming from the Artist a Priest, a Priest and, last but not least, a guide". (Florentin Streche - Emil Boroghină și „călătoria” spre lumea (sa) dantescă / revista Regal Literar, 7 iunie 2021)
- "As the lights of the theatre dimmed, the whispers died away and the stage became, for more than an hour, like a temple in which the priest, holding the Book tightly in his hands, enveloped all those present in the charm of the service. The Book is a symbol present in all Emil Boroghina's recitals. (...) The verses flowed smoothly or swirling, sweet or fiery, transporting everyone on a journey through Dante's songs. (...) From the pathos with which he devoted himself to his mission, his vast culture, his love for what will last forever and, above all, his desire to transmit, from the great poetry, to all those who want not to forget, to those who want to learn, to those who want to be penetrated by the ineffable, by beauty, by nobility, by what elevates and transcends." (Iolanda Mănescu - Dante 700 / revista Mozaicul, 6-7 / 2021)
- "Emil Boroghina has melted, it seems to me, his tireless memory, in the golden sounds of verse, offering his faithful spectators performances of ... collection. A singular one, in its turn, which will be poured out as a deserved blessing, in his lifelong dream project, that of a Poetic Theatre. Finally, accomplished under the brand ... POESIS. (...) Emil Boroghina does not love the emphasis, so typical of the actor's creation, he ignores the exuberance, the gestures pushed towards the gratuitous spectacular of the boulevard rhetoric, his recitals are based on the secret acoustics of the syllable, the word and the verse in the most natural combination". (George Popescu - Dante's divine journey in a wonderful theatrical performance - Emil Borogina under the spell of Poetry /revista Mozaicul, 6-7 / 2021)