Orff’s 1936 “cantata that conquered the world” bugs me as not only a dumbed-down rip-off of Stravinsky’s Wedding (1923), but also a mauling of verses that already have their own sharp, lively, fine-grained music.
The latter point is especially egregious since, for most people, the cantata constitutes their only encounter with the old songs somebody at the Benedictbeurern monastery copied down sometime in the 13th century. As history, they’re the link between Ovid and “Summer's here and the time is right / For dancing in the street.” As literature, their freshness and directness is unmatched. As the scholar Helen Waddell wrote, “It is the background of wild earth, of rain-washed April, that gives their earthiest passion its amazing cleanness.”
Well the other night at the Bowl, Dudamel demonstrated that there’s something to Carmina Burana after all. It was an lesson in what supremely talented musicians can do. I was completely won over.
Dudamel’s secret weapon was the soloists: Joélle Harvey, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and—above all—the baritone Brian Mulligan. He not only had the necessary vocal range to pull off the part, but really brought his various characters to life. He injected the performance with anger, exasperation, aching longing and the spirit of “I couldn’t care less.”
[Image: from the Carmina Burana manuscript, 13th c.]
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