Carmina Burana: Hurricane of Applause!

A hurricane of applause for Orff’s "Carmina Burana" and a great baritone in the Musikverein.
Concert. Remember the name: Artur Rucinski. Go to any opera performance where you can hear this singer. At the moment, in his native Poland, soon in Berlin and at the Bregenz Festival, and then worldwide, I’m sure of that. This is a technically perfect, nice-sounding, full-bodied voice, as secure in the extreme high range and falsetto (!) as in the deep tones. A voice made for Iago and other major Verdi roles.

Drinking and Dance Scenes.
He was to be discovered in his Vienna debut on Sunday. He sang the baritone part of Carmina Burana with the best operatic intensity and with vividness the drinking, love and dance scenes that Carl Orff had put to music after medieval texts.

The Schönberg Choir with its leader Erwin Ortner and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and other soloists (including the outstanding Anna Siminska) were ideal interpreters of the work, as well as of the preceding Chichester Psalms by Bernstein. With many nuances that were concise, exact and differentiated, the group of singers sparked an outburst of enthusiasm from the audience bordering on the frenetic. Proof of the undiminished effect of Orff’s genial choral work.

Karl Löbl

Translation by John Allan Moffatt.