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A Vivid, and Instructive, Carmina Burana with a Touch of Wagner Budapest
Opera
05/15/2026 - & May 26, 31, June 13*, 2026
Richard Wagner: Operatic Selections
Carl Orff: Carmina Burana
Zsuzsanna Kapi (soprano), Gabriella Balga (alto), Zsolt Haja (baritone)
Hungarian State Opera Chorus and Children’s Chorus, Gábor Csiki (chorus master), Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Dániel Erdélyi (conductor)
D. Erdélyi
Perhaps more than any other piece of classical music, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana suffers from intense overfamiliarity. Clocking in at just over an hour and presenting 24 musical settings of medieval poetry in vernacular Latin across five sections, it is most famous for its driving “O Fortuna” introduction and finale reprise. “O Fortuna” is a meditation on the fickle nature of fate, which is immediately recognizable from countless popular culture borrowings.
Carmina Burana’s premiere in 1937 also placed it controversially within the torturous cultural politics of Nazi Germany, where the authorities, initially ambivalent, came to embrace it. The fallout after 1945 was swift, with “O Fortuna” surviving out of context and with an improvised meaning as a battle hymn anticipating victory. Ever since, music critics have either derided or trivialized the larger work.
The Hungarian State Opera this season is offering numerous performances of Carmina Burana paired with added on concerts of music by Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner. The Wagner incarnation opened this concert, with the famous prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Dániel Erdélyi led an assured performance that resounded all the more magnificently as the orchestra performed on stage with an extension over the orchestra pit. Additional selections included the bridal chorus from Lohengrin, with the chorus deployed high up in the balconies, allowing their exceptional sound to carry across the auditorium. Baritone Zsolt Haja delivered an impassioned and deeply sensitive account of Wolfram’s “O du mein holder Abendstern,” from Tannhäuser. Soprano Zsuzsanna Kapi was affecting in “Dich teurer Halle,” Elisabeth’s aria from the same opera. The orchestra came back strong with a fine playing of the “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla,” the finale of Das Rheingold.
Commentary from one of the direction’s boxes by the musicologist Dániel Mona explained some fairly basic concepts about opera, with some rather glib comparisons of Wagner and Orff that might have been instructive for children or uninitiated adults, few of whom appeared to be in attendance.
The second part was devoted to Carmina Burana. Rather than simply stand and sing, however, the chorus was clad in medieval monastic garb and performed with the backing of a video projections. “O Fortuna” was performed before a vast star field embracing the cosmos. The other selections, many of which deal with nature, benefited from flowing abstractions of water. The choral skills here reach to the highest standards, and chorus master Gábor Csiki deserves all the credit in the world for refining them.
Paul du Quenoy
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