A video performance based on Carl Orff's stage cantata of the same name
20th century the cantata "Carmina Burana" by the German composer Carl Orff is one of the most impressive masterpieces of world music.
The piece is created with a libretto written by the composer himself, using twenty-four medieval poems from 1803. Codex Buranus of the manuscript discovered in the monastery of Beuern. Perhaps the most famous part of the cantata "Carmina Burana" is the soaring chorus "O Fortuna" that opens and closes the work. The texts of the cantata touch on many themes that have not lost their relevance to this day: the impermanence of luck and wealth, the rapid flow of life, the joy of the return of spring and the fleeting pleasures of drinking, rich food, gambling and carnal love. A collection of secular songs in a cantata in Latin and Middle High German. The music is directed to the listener's heart, expressive, frenzied, sometimes lyrical and lustful.
The premiere of the cantata "Carmina Burana" took place in Frankfurt am Main in 1937. After it, the composer C. Orff wrote to his publisher: "Everything that I have created and that you have unfortunately published up to this day can be destroyed. My works will start with "Carmina's Burana".
The performance of the piece "Carmina Burana" requires great strength and high performance technique. The piece was created for a large and unusual orchestra, a double mixed choir and three soloists: soprano, baritone, tenor.
In a cantata, the composer seems to play with movement, sound, dance, song and the visual magic of the stage. Carl Orff considered theater to be a synthesis of all arts and aimed for a combined effect of stage impressions on the viewer. "Carmina Burana" is a work that has received many genre interpretations, played, sung, acted and danced on all continents of the world.
Cantata director Dalius Abaris calls the performance at the Klaipėda festival a videographic performance. According to him, the audience should be surprised by the performance as a whole: dynamic and effective music by C. Orff, the huge constructions of the old boathouse, the choir of impressive size needed to perform this work, the theater orchestra, soloists, mimance artists. This alone would be enough for "Carmina Burana" to create an impression, and we, together with the talented scenographer Sigita Šimkūnaite, will try to control this whole and wrap it in clothes that unite everything."
