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

Carl Orff wanted to see some sort of staging of his musical score, Carmina Burana. I'd like to think he would have approved of this one. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle films Carmina among stage pieces that often take the viewer where no theater audience could go. The effect is a bit like entering a Bosch painting.

This is the same method Ponnelle used with a number of operas, but here he is more free to create a fantasy world of images; here he has only a series of poems; no plot structure to furnish. If a few of the effects look a bit primitive, others are magical. And sometimes the whiplash from comedy to horror was so swift that I found myself questioning the smugness that led me to question this or that image, and I quickly found myself immersed in the work again.

The DVD has English subtitles for the Latin. How wonderful finally to be able to follow the text all the way through! However, I urge you, watch WITHOUT TEXT the first time through. The musical performance is good enough that, if you like the work, you'll happily go back. Orff chose to set Latin because he wanted us to take the meaning from the music. Trust that the outrageous things occurring on stage grow from the text, and submit to the pull of sounds and images. Words will clog the process, and the images will surprise and delight best on that first encounter if you're not busy reading. I'm a fan of subtitled movies, but we process words differently from sound.

I bought the DVD of this for the movie, but any movie of Carmina would be of passing interest if not well sung and played. This one is excellent. I have long admired Lucia Popp's Queen of the Night for Klemperer, and she is as good here. The rest of the cast and the orchestra is also up to the competition.

Alas, to my knowledge the DVD has never been issued in the US. I got my copy from England and play it in the US on my laptop which knows nothing of region codes and is equally happy playing PAL as NTSC. With laptop connected to my sound system I had a front row seat. No extra software was required for this on my Mac. I've been trying to see this production for 30 years. It says a lot that I wasn't disappointed.

My high school period was dominated by Carmina burana. And after decades, the affection for this great work of Carl Orff remains the same.

This adaptation is absolutey fantastic, from cothes to voices, from atmosphere to the beautifu reflection of symbols.

It is more than inspired opera adaptation but a precious gift as trave across a wor who you feeled , in many occasions, so familiar and who obtains the fantastic refection.

At its end, the gratitude for the effort and genius of Jean - Pierre Ponnelle is the only fair reaction.

In short, just a great film , fantastic in each aspect , impressive at whole.

This was a colourful and lusty movie,set to Carl Orff's music. Costumes and settings spectacular which I have never seen the like of since. Regret not copying it on video at the time - have tried various places to purchase it over the years- even West Germany - without success.