'Carmina Burana' gets full Monty at GKJ

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Carl Orff's composition, Carmina Burana, may well be the most paradoxical piece of music ever performed in public.

The piece is a celebration of certain aspects of life such as the pleasures of drinking, gambling, lust, and the essentially ephemeral quality of human existence, but the way it is performed has such a religious intensity that the unschooled listener could easily mistake it for a chant to worship a god or part of a pagan ritual.

It is now perceived as a very grand form of human celebration -- so grand that it has become an integral element of popular and political culture.

Excerpts from the piece, especially the spectacular opening and final number, O Fortuna, have been widely used in commercials and movies.

It has appeared as background music in films such as Oliver Stones' Natural Born Killers and a biopic of rock group The Doors.

Such a life-affirming composition might have befitted the wrecked life of the "crazy Dionysius" that was Jim Morrison.

The composition was also hijacked by the Nazi regime as a celebration of early "Aryan" culture.

Another paradox is that many modern renditions of the piece, which were later produced as CDs for mass consumption, have the innocent voices of boys and girls singing some of its most erotic parts.

Late last week, the Bandung, West Java-based Parahyangan Catholic University choir and the Jakarta Chamber Orchestra once again perpetuated the second paradox.

The award-winning choir, under the direction of conductor Avip Priatna, commissioned university and junior high school students to belt out a majestic rendition of Carmina Burana.

Alternating between highly rhythmic and percussive passages as well as melodic sections, the student choir took the full-house audience at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta (GKJ) on a journey to medieval times, when kings and queens ruled their subjects absolutely.

The choir group also assigned four talented soloists to sing some sections that feature a variety of tales.

Tenor Arkadius Ari Wibowo, who performed Cignus Ustus Cantat (Roasted goose cantata), for instance, interpreted the tragic tale of the fowl as if he were relating the death of loved ones.

Miser, miser!, Modo niger, et ustus fortiter! (I am in pain, now I turn black, fully roasted)," Ari chanted lyrically.

Never has roasted goose sounded so heart-rending.

Elsewhere, soprano Bernadeta Maitri Astari gave a faithful rendition of Ego Sum Abbas as if it were an ode to a god, when in fact it was about booze-loving priests.

Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis, et consilium meum est cum bibulis (I am a pastor from Cockaigne and my congregation consists of a legion of drunks)," Astari sung.

The text for Carmina Burana, which is mostly in Latin, was written by students and clergy at around 1230 A.D. who lampooned and satirized the Church establishment.

Parahyangan University student choir owed a great deal of their magnificent performance to two young pianists, 14-year-olds Cosmas Sebastian Atmadja and Handy Suroyo, whose well-integrated piano accompaniment marked the songs' progress and produced an exuberant wash of sound.

If anything less than two highly talented young pianists and the Jakarta Chamber Orchestra had backed the choir, their interpretation of Carmina Burana would not have been nearly as well-received as it was.

The show's finest moment came late during the closing number, O Fortuna.

Sometimes, the massed chorus sounded as though it were singing miles away but at others it sounded so close, leaving the audience cowering under an O Fortuna thunderous crescendo.

checked -- JSR

Caption : Conductor Avip Priatna (left) directs the student choir of Parahyangan Catholic University and the Jakarta Chamber Orchestra while soloist Arkadius Ari Wibowo (center) sings a piece from Carmina Burana. Young pianist Handy Suroyo (right) provides instrumental accompaniment.