A cast-of-thousands-spectacle version of Carl Orff’s crowd-pleasing “Carmina Burana” is due at the United Center on March 5, the performers curiously unannounced as of this writing. You can be pretty sure they won’t be the fancy forces EMI assembled in Berlin in late December 2004 under Simon Rattle for this latest addition to a very crowded catalog.
The live recording betrays no trace of audience noise, but everybody on the disc sounds as if they are mightily enjoying themselves. Rattle fairly revels in the full panoply of colors Orff packed into his “scenic cantata.” A couple of his tempo shifts will raise your eyebrows but they seem an integral part of an aptly hedonistic piece that takes its place among the half-dozen best modern recordings of this oft-recorded work.
The best thing about the performance is the singing of the Berlin Radio Choir, which responds with nuance, crystalline diction and thorough commitment to the lusty text and music. It’s a luxury to hear an orchestra of the Berlin Phil’s caliber tearing so robustly and precisely into Orff’s proto-minimalist score, even if the Berlin Philharmonie sonics sometimes render individual woodwinds as loud as the entire chorus.
Of the soloists, soprano Sally Matthews is good if not quite pure enough of sound; tenor Lawrence Brownlee delivers the “roasted swan” solo beautifully, almost too beautifully; and baritone Christian Gerhaher continues to impress with his incisiveness of expression and warm, rounded tone.
Don’t part with any of your favorite CD versions of “Carmina” (I continue to be partial to James Levine’s 1980s Chicago Symphony account on DG) but do check out this new one.
