In the 27 January 2021 performance of OperaWednesday, the best excerpts from the renowned oratorio Carmina Burana by Carl Orff were presented from 8:00 p.m. on Facebook and Origo.hu.
O Fortuna. Everyone is familiar with the overwhelmingly powerful opening motifs of Carl Orff’s most famous work. The texts for these “secular songs” come from a 13th-century manuscript of poems, discovered in Bavaria in 1803, which contains verses by travelling students and clergy in Medieval Latin, Middle High German and Old French. Orff composed cantatas from 24 of these poems, which are organised around the three main unified themes of "spring", "drinking", and "love". The composer uses simple, repetitive melodies, and plays with pulsating, energetic rhythms to enchant the audience with music that is sometimes amusing, sometimes bizarre, and sometimes ethereally gorgeous.
The concert highlights of this grand oratorio were performed by soloists Zsolt Haja (baritone) and Zita Szemere (soprano), the Hungarian State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Gábor Csiki), Sámuel Csaba Tóth, Balázs Kálvin (piano), Ádám Maros (timpani) Gusztáv Péter Cser, Gáspár Szente, János Tóth, Attila László, András Császár and Roland Nagy (percussion). Conductor: Balázs Kocsár. Artistic director of the performance: András Aczél, narrator: Dániel Mona.
The performance can be viewed HERE.
Photo by Péter Rákossy