Franz (Purgatorio XXVII-XXXIII)
Date of Creation: 2026
Text & Direction: Andrea Spreafico
Music Composition: Matteo Fargion
With: Francesca Fargion, Matteo Fargion, Björn Guo, Robert M Johanson, Martha MacBean, Stefan Penjin, Live Sunniva Smidt and Franz
Lighting Design: Thomas Bruvik
Sound Design: Tor Erik Erikssen
Stage Design and Costumes: Thomas Bruvik, Karen Eide Bøen, Andrea Spreafico
VR design: Cameron MacLeod
Artificial voices: Giacomo Fargion
Produced by: Spreafico Eckly
Administrative production: Sigrid Aarvik & Karen Eide Bøen
Operational production: Karen Eide Bøen
Media manager and communication: Mike Malajalian
Co-Produced by: Borealis Festival, Rosendal Teater
Supported by: Arts Council Norway, Bergen Kommune, Malavoadora-La Campilha, Teatro Rasi, Conservatorio Statale Giuseppe Verdi
A mediocre theatre company is tasked with staging Garden of Eden as described by Dante in the divine Comedy. They turn to Franz, an artificial intelligence, for help. What unfolds is a sung, emotional and chaotic brainstorming session, a looping performance-within-the-performance, where rehearsal, fiction and reality collapse into one another. Human confusion and the superficiality of artificial intelligence begin to feed each other in an absurd spiral.
Blending folk songs, classical quotations and expressive parlato, the piece moves between happening, literature, theatre and opera. The audience is invited on stage, where VR masks offer access to a dystopian Eden – largely ignored by performers too busy with their own chaos.
With wit and unpredictability, Franz explores AI and the strange beauty of human chaotic behaviors.
This is the final part of Andrea Spreafico and Matteo Fargion’s trilogy inspired by Dante’s Purgatorio, the middle cantica of the Divine Comedy.
