Getting Orff in San Francisco
A bed-mate for Carmina Burana?
James Jolly 5:57pm GMT 16th November 2010
San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall [Photo: SFSO
Donato Cabrera [Photo: SFSO
What do you programme with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana? It was a brief topic of dinner conversation following a performance in San Francisco last week. It was, to my shame, only the second time I’d ever heard the work live, though as a teenager I used to play the Jochum, Muti and Previn LPs until they were wafer-thin. Of course, one answer is ‘Anything’ because the Orff will bring you the audience. You could be clever and use some of the same forces – maybe Stravinsky’s Pulcinella to give the tenor a little more to do, but you’d need a mezzo as well – and the baritone might object to the work load. ‘Play something new!’ Another nice idea as you’d probably be playing to less cynical ears, as Carmina Burana tends to keep the musical snobs at bay. Well, the night I went to Davies Symphony Hall we heard a nicely scaled and suitably sprightly performance of Haydn’s Symphony No 97 (having not heard a note of live music for a month, having been travelling round Japan and New Zealand, this Londoner felt this most delightful of the ‘London’ symphonies was being played just for him). In charge was the SFSO’s assistant conductor Donato Cabrera and the orchestra played very well for him – and he certainly whipped up a sense of occasion for Carmina Burana. It’s such a fun piece and it’s no wonder it continues to entrance and thrill – and how good to hear it played by a really good orchestra. The three soloists were excellent, with tenor Nicholas Phan stealing the show in his song of the roasting swan, and having had the audience eating out of his slowly charring hand spurred baritone Keith Phares on to play to the gallery – to good effect. Joélle Harvey was the sweet-voiced soprano (and what a beast of time Orff gives her!). The vast chorus sang with lusty enthusiasm, and any inclination to surrender to jet-lag was quickly resisted.
Comments
Although I am a subscriber to San Francisco Symphony concerts this one was not part of my schedule. It's good to read your review of Carmina Burana because the local critic of the only real newspaper in the city panned the performance as "sloggy and humdrum". But the conductor he heard was Carlos Kalmar. Maybe the critic was right and subsequent performances were given to Cabrera.
Why not couple it with another Orff work: the Catulli Carmina (OK, you have to wheel on more pianos) is the most obvious, and many of us have the Jochum box with these two works. Or there is Der Mond, less familiar, but with a fairy tale atmosphere that would close the concert nicely.