Carmina Burana

Many years ago, I attended -- in four consecutive nights -- Wagner's entire Ring Cycle.  Looking back, I admire my stamina -- practicing law by day, and watching lengthy operas each evening past my usual bedtime.  

I obviously enjoyed it, because the very next year I repeated the experience. 

The four operas contain beautiful arias and stirring orchestral music.  They also contain unusually long stretches of recitative, which is a sort of sung or chanted conversation.  I knew, of course, the basic plot of each opera, and had read portions of the lengthy librettos.  But even so, it was difficult to know exactly what the singer was singing during each aria, and impossible during the recitative.

My youthful period of attending operas regularly was short-lived, but I later realized that many opera houses had begun projecting the English translation of the libretto over the stage, analogous to the showing of subtitles during foreign movies.  My first experience with such "supertitles" was at a performance of Wagner's Tannhäuser by the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2015.  It was a revelation.

A similar revelation was last Saturday's performance of Carmina Burana by the Seattle Symphony, joined by the Seattle Symphony Chorale and the Northwest Boychoir.  I was quite familiar with the music, having heard it frequently both on radio and from my own LP.  It was ok, I felt.  It did go on and on, although the music was interestingly different, at least on first hearing -- a twentieth century take on music discovered in manuscripts from the high middle ages.  I wasn't really excited about hearing it again -- but I had a season's ticket.  Rather than waste it, I went.

The choral singing -- in Latin, Old French, and Middle High German, according to the program notes -- was translated and displayed in superscripts.  And the superscripts made all the difference in the world.  The music made sense, once I understood what was being sung, and considered the context.  The performance is an hour in length, but it was never boring.  

Credit also to the excellent singing by the two choruses, and to the singing -- and acting ability -- of the three soloists.  After listening to the Swan's solo lament at being roasted and served at a banquet, I'm not sure whether I will ever feel comfortable eating turkey again at Thanksgiving!