Carmina burana

I am an incorrigible music lover, and classical music has accompanied my life for as long as I have known myself. However, I didn't fully explore this piece, by Carl Orff, until I was eighteen years old. I've heard it countless times. I virtually memorized the lyrics (especially the Latin parts). Later, I saw it live. Much more recently, I became more in touch with the original texts and poetry of the Codex Buranus and with sung versions that are closer to the medieval sound, which was in line with my activity as a medievalist. And I have no doubt that I have not read or heard it all.

When creating this symphonic work, at the beginning of the 20th century, Carl Orff selected some poems and gave them music. Although we often hear the various sections of his work separately (especially "O Fortuna", which turned out to be the most famous section), I feel that this is a work that needs to be heard in its entirety to become understandable in its message. There is a coherent logic in the choice of poems, and in the order in which Orff places the various sections, transforming this work into an ode to human nature, the cycle of life and the hopes and anxiousnesses of Man. It is no coincidence that it begins and ends with "O Fortuna", the song that best describes the ups and downs of luck and chance in our lives.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle took an excellent initiative when directing this recording, where nothing is done in a thoughtless way either. Orff himself, when visiting the film set, was impressed and satisfied with the entire production, which indicates that we can see, in this footage, something that will closely resemble what the composer imagined in his mind. I especially liked the inclusion of the various allegorical figures (the Angel, the Devil, Justice, Faith, Temperance, Time etc.) because I feel they fit well into the big picture, along with the various allusions to medieval art, to cathedrals, to medieval environments and scenarios. The various popular and noble costumes also deserve praise. An excellent staging work.

The recording has excellent actors, starting with the various soloists. John Van Kesteren is a tenor that Orff respected a lot, and it's great to hear him here. Lucia Popp also deserves a round of applause. At this stage of her career, she was becoming one of the most beautiful and solid coloratura sopranos of her time, and she offers us here an excellent vocal work and a great resourcefulness on stage. I don't know Hermann Prey that well, he stopped singing long before I remembered to pay attention to him, but I like what I hear on the various existing recordings, and this one is no exception. Also, he really knew how to fill the screen and steal our attention. Invisible to the eye, but omnipresent, the Munich Radio Orchestra does an excellent job.

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is a work that has been growing on me over the years. Not that I disliked it before, but there was a while when O Fortuna was played so much on the radio and on television I found myself not as receptive to it. However listening to the whole of Carmina Burana I now appreciate it, primarily due to this film and the recording with Ozawa conducting and Sherrill Milnes singing the baritone solo.

I admire Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and have enjoyed his ideas and opera films. All his work has ranged from good to outstanding, with his 1982 Rigoletto being in my opinion his crowning achievement. This 1975 Carmina Burana is outstanding, one of Ponnelle's best and in terms of ideas and imagination perhaps his most interesting. The music is brilliant and sung brilliantly by a very characterful and compelling chorus, played with evocative richness by the orchestra and conducted with authority. I know some may not like the fact you don't see the orchestra and not much of the chorus other than the occasional jumping up and down, but I didn't mind this personally.

One shouldn't dismiss the soloists either, they are all fantastic. John Van Kesteren as the tenor was the one I knew least, but he has a very pleasing voice. Lucia Popp is my personal favourite, she was a great soprano who died much too young, and here you hear a sincerity and ethereal quality to her already wonderful voice. I know from his performances as Figaro in Ponnelle's films Der Barbier Von Sevilla and Le Nozze Di Figaro and as Einsenstein in Die Fledermaus, that Hermann Prey had a clear hearty voice and always entertaining to watch. Here he is a little more subdued, but the resonance and clarity is still there as well as the presence.

Ponnelle's films and set and costume designs were always interesting. Some may criticise them for being too old-fashioned or too simple, however I find them very elegant. In Carmina Burana other than the music, it was the visuals that made this Carmina Burana so good. The costumes and settings are incredibly authentic and give the work its lust and piety, in fact of all Ponnelle's films it is Carmina Burana that contains some of his most evocative and imaginative ideas. The camera work is also excellent, and enhances the drama rather than distracts from it. The sound gives justice to the orchestration's power and the picture quality while not the clearest of other productions I've seen is above average.

All in all, a wonderful Carmina Burana. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's interpretation of Orff's brilliant piece of music is a visual orgy of iconic images and art history references, a tribute to the sacred, the profane, the celestial, the mundane, and all that makes art art. It transcends the boundaries of the sacred and profane, showing how they both make up what it is to be human. One of the reviewers of this rare piece of European cultural and cinematic history remarked that this version of Orff's masterpiece of the sacred and profane was hard to find in Germany. Not so strange, it was banned there for decades, most likely because of its almost literal interpretation of the texts Orff put music to. I first saw this when I was 12-13 years old at the Goethe Institut i Bergen, Norway, with my father, sister and mother. Someone had managed to get hold of an 8mm film roll with it and had a secret screening. This was in the 1980s and, believe it or not, there were strong forces opposed to what the considered blasphemous content in films. The mixture of Christian and pagan imagery is completely consistent with the lyrics, which were found in a monastery, and are a mixture of sacred and profane songs, but were obviously too tough to swallow. Copies of the film were destroyed, but luckily, art prevailed.

Flat, dull, shot on video, populated by lots of ugly men and women. This is a wonderful piece of music set to boring visuals. What was the point. If they had hired some real actors or dancers with any skill, it could have been something. But as it is, we have the local amateur theatre of some small town in Bavaria, and a director with very little imagination. Forget the other reviews. I watched this because I wanted to see something more than a concert performance. But this definitely not it. Forget the other reviews. One even calls it an 'a capella' piece! DUH! Does he even know what the term means. It refers to a chorus without orchestra. In Orff's piece it is the orchestra that makes the performance. Well, anyway, at least he used a decent recording of the work (conducted by Eugen Jochim, if I remember right), so it isn't a total waste of time. Next time the director needs to at least find some performers that are good to look at, if nothing else, or better yet hire a ballet troupe.

I'd heard much about this film, but wasn't sure how anyone could possibly stage what is essentially an a-capella chorus. Me, I had my own ideas of how and what I wanted to shoot, but alas I wasn't sure how it could be done, nor think that any film maker would take on the challenge.

Like a lot of young males my age I first heard Orff's music in Boorman's "Excalibur". The music itself (and if you can't understand Latin) is very pretentious with a sense of urgency, and is also operatic in scope (no obvious self referential pun intended). Orff infuses a great deal of joy and magnificence in his composition and arrangements, to a level that I think most others would envy. I know I do. However Boorman, being a film maker and interested only in the image of thing to convey a message, chose the wrong music for his movie. "Excalibur" tells of Arthurian legends, where battles take place, strife, struggle, honor and deep angst, where Orff's piece is supposed to be a celebration of life, as the Latin tells. Did Boorman really mean some other message with Orff's music when he put it in during the battle sequences? Ehh... maybe, but I doubt it. To Boorman it was just really cool sounding music, so he dumped it in his film.

But, to the film: Sex. There's a lot of sexual references in this thing. So much that one wonders if director Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden had anything else in mind (or on his mind for that matter during shooting) when he conceived this project. But, he's not the only one, for Orff himself wrote the piece as an ode and celebration of life. The message is to not take life too seriously, and to enjoy life for what it is. If that means finding the person of your fancy and bedding them, then so be it.

We don't see much sex, just a lot of sexual imagery and innuendo. There's the whole Christian thing going on here conflicting with people's natural instincts and desires. All the high minded spiritual stuff is there, but essentially gets shelved, for men and women need one another. The two meet, fancy one another, and the woman challenges her man to prove his worth. He rises to the occasion, and through the struggle they come to couple. "It's the way of things" (to borrow from Boorman).

I first saw Orff's music performed by the San Francisco Symphony and chorus. It was very moving if somewhat bland by the visuals. However the German film makers here have put together a tapestry of inner desires, and the joys of living and being with the one you LOVE. Not the one you're forced with, not the one your parents or guardians chose for you, but the one you chose, and the one who chose you. That is the true message of Orff's piece.

Visually and stylistically the film may be a bit much for some people, but then again it was created and designed for the artsy classical music crowd, me included. It's shot indoors, lots of lighting, some adequate lip-syncing, lots of sexual imagery, and a very energetic and enthusiastic cast who tell the tale of want, desire and need of not just man, but of all creatures as time goes on. Lots of props, costumes, even a few FX/process shots, all amount to a unique look to this film.

Criticisms? My only one is that I haven't had a chance to shoot my version... as yet ;-)