“As someone who normally doesn’t care about happy endings, I feel like this one offers a little shred of hope,” Lavoie says.

This in-progress staging will feature the play’s songs and full script. The performance is part of re:Naissance’s IndieFest, now in its 6th edition. This year’s theme is “Colliding Art Forms.”

Playing with levels

Newton first came across Dante’s Inferno as a liberal arts student in Quebec. The text reminded the then nineteen-year-old Newton of a video game – where an individual must travel through different levels before reaching Satan or “the final boss.”

An older Newton then revisited the text, reflecting on themes of faith and religion. The idea for Inferno: A Hip-Hop Opera took shape during the pandemic – a “bleak and dark” time that called for such conversations.

“I was raised Christian, but I’m not really religious, so what does this story mean to me from a secular standpoint?” Newton asks. “That led to interesting conversations about what is the new religion, and then we started talking about artists being true to their spirituality.”

“Covid brings you into these great, existential spaces of curiosity and questioning all things,” Lavoie shares. “I did find a lot of resonance in the text and thought, ‘We could do something fun and satirical.’”

Set in a Spotify-esque headquarters, their inferno story follows Vie, a young producer, as she tries to regain rights over her work.

“Vie has signed away the rights to one of her most iconic songs,” Newton explains. “Instead of going down to the levels of hell, she’s going up the floors of this corporate building to confront the CEO.”

Along the way, Vie joins forces with Mo, the building’s security guard, who has experienced similar artistic theft.

“Each level [of the building] will hold a difference in the musical tempo, so we’ll be able to play with that as an extension of the dramaturgy, to navigate the sins that Vie and Mo are encountering,” Lavoie shares.

Laughter is power

For the creators, collaboration has been a highlight of working on Inferno: A Hip-Hop Opera. They are still bringing in new collaborators as the script develops. Lavoie adds that while the play respects opera as a “beautiful, ancient, biblical art form,” it also pushes genre-based boundaries.

“Spirituality has been replaced by capitalism in our play, and [our main character is] in search of her artistic essence rather than in search of lost souls,” Newton shares.

“It’s intersectional in a really fun way,” Lavoie shares. “[The play] allows these new ideas to reach out to new audiences…to push the boundaries and see how elastic everything is.”

Their story reflects on the ethics of using technology – particularly artificial intelligence – in the arts. For Lavoie, these questions begin as an “individual exploration of boundaries,” a questioning of what one is willing to compromise to achieve fame.

“Ultimately, Vie realizes that Mo also has a similar story, and it branches out: another person has that story and another person [also has that story],” she reflects. ”You realize you’re not alone, and this is about community.”

While they have previously staged snippets of the play, the upcoming performance will be the first full reading of the script. Newton and Lavoie will be paying close attention to the audience – including their breaths and silence.

“It’d be good to see how it resonates with people,” Newton says. “You learn from audience responses and lack thereof – what’s working and what’s not?”

“I feel like it’s a really communal piece, we’re all just like: ‘capitalism sucks,’” Lavoie shares of previous stagings. “We get so much information from being inside the womb of the audience.”

For artists struggling with these questions, she advises them to be patient with themselves and refrain from comparing their journeys to others. The creator also advocates for a return to thinking of artistic production as a “craft.”

Aside from providing a good time, they hope the performance will build community and encourage reflections on the value of live art.

“Our weapon against injustice is humour,” Newton adds. “When you point out the absurdity of things – whether its dictatorial presidential regimes or policies – to be mocked, it takes the power from them.”

Debi Wong, founding artistic director of re:Naissance Opera, is the play’s musical supervisor. The team also includes Teiya Kasahara (opera); Leo D.E Johnson (soul and blues); Kimmortal (rap and hip-hop); and Scribbly Doodle (beatboxing).

For more information, see www.reopera.ca/inferno