Concert Review: Big Wheel Keep On Turnin'

The NJSO opens with Carmina Burana.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The conductor Jacques Lacombe.
Photo by Daniel Cossette © 2014 Canadian Broadcasting Company

Newark, New Jersey became the focal point of high culture on Friday night when the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra opened its 2014 season at Prudential Hall, the gorgeous and unlikely concert venue that has been the ensemble's home since 1997. The occasion was a gala evening with former governors, politicos and a crowd of well-dressed donors, all gathered to hear Jacques Lacombe lead his troops through Carmina Burana, Carl Orff's 1937 song cycle based on medieval Bavarian texts.

Concert Review: This Wheel's on Fire

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opens Carnegie Hall with Carmina Burana.

Your host for Wheel of Fortune: Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened both the 2012-2013 Carnegie Hall season and and a three-night stand at the famous New York concert venue on Wednesday, Oct. 3. The choice of repertory: Carl Orff's epic 20th century choral work Carmina Burana, under the baton of music director Riccardo Muti.

Orff's blend of choral drinking songs, pseudo-medieval dances and operatic arias has remained popular since the work's 1938 premiere. However, due to the pop-culture omnipresence of the chorus O Fortuna that opens and closes this hour-long piece, Carmina Burana (the title means "Songs of Bavaria") has something of a mixed reputation. The piece continues to draw scorn from critics and cognoscenti for its catchy melodies, simple structures and a conspicuous lack of thematic development in each of its twenty-five sections.

Those perceived weaknesses became strengths under Mr. Muti's direction. The fiery Italian seemed almost sedate during the opening O Fortuna, barely lifting his arms to direct the choristers as the musicans pounded out the familiar ostinato rhythm. But as the cycle continued, Mr. Muti used his experience in opera and symphonic repertory to carve these granite-like blocks of sound into sharp reliefs showing the details of Orff's medieval world.

Concert Review: Middle Ages, Spread

The Philharmonic takes on Carmina Burana.

The caption reads: "Virtue lies defeated."
(Note the wheel in the background.)
From El Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Réverte,
© 1993 Random House.

by Paul J. Pelkonen
The performance of choral music is not the primary mission of the New York Philharmonic. In its long history, the orchestra has taken advantage of skilled choral ensembles and music directors (Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur) with a penchant for choral repertory.

On Thursday night, the Philharmonic presented the first of three concerts led by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, a veteran conductor acclaimed for his interpretations of choral and dramatic music. The program paired Atlantide, the final, unfinished cantata by Manuel de Falla, with Carl Orff's mighty Carmina Burana, an audience favorite. This was the orchestra's first performance of the Orff work since 1995.

In the interests of time and authenticity, Mr. Frühbeck chose to present Falla's completed, performable sketches instead of the whole three-act work. Atlantide requires two pianos and lush orchestration for its rich portrait of ocean exploration and the journeys of Christopher Columbus. Juilliard-trained soprano Emalie Savoy sang the pivotal Queen Elizabeth with rage and inner magnetism. However, despite the conductor's best efforts, the disconnected segments of the cantata failed to jell into a dramatic whole.

Superconductor Interview: The Next Swan

We sit down to breakfast with tenor Nicholas Phan. 

Tenor Nicholas Phan will appear in Carmina Burana at the end of this month.

Nicholas Phan is going to be roasted.

It's not 'til the end of the month, when the talented young singer is scheduled to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic. The work: Carmina Burana. The role, that of a swan, who is about to be roasted in the tavern ovens of Carl Orff's medieval-inspired 20th century cantata. The first performance: May 31, under the baton of Rafäel Fruhbeck de Burgos.

A few weeks ago in New York City, Mr. Phan joined Superconductor for breakfast at a café near Lincoln Center. He had just returned from Atlanta where he sang Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni. With no roast swans on the breakfast menu, the singer is having granola and yogurt, with a small side of sausage.