About 200 singers and the 70-strong KZN Philharmonic Orchestra (KZNPO) crowded the stage of the Durban City Hall for a triumphant final concert of the orchestra’s spring season.
They performed one of the most extraordinary compositions of the 20 century, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuren), a non-religious cantata for choir, vocal soloists and orchestra, written in the 1930s, but rooted in medieval Europe.
If this description sounds forbiddingly highbrow, I hasten to add that the work has achieved vast popularity. Its opening and closing chorus, O Fortuna, has had a powerful appeal for film and television makers as well as for advertisers of a wide variety of products, from after-shave lotion to draught beer.
Carmina Burana has been presented several times in Durban in the past, always with great success, as was the case on this occasion.
It is based on 11th to 13th century poems found hundreds of years later in a Bavarian monastery. Orff, a German, set 25 of them to music, using a generally unharmonised, strongly rhythmical style to suggest the relatively straightforward music of long ago.
It is a captivating work, and it roused a full house in the City Hall to an exceptional pitch of enthusiasm, with a prolonged standing ovation for the performers.
The concert was staged as a tribute to Bongani Tembe’s 20 years as the KZNPO’s chief executive, and he must have been a proud man.
The German conductor and pianist, Justus Frantz was on the podium, and the combined choirs were the Sounds of Joy Chorale (based in Umlazi), the Clermont Community Choir, the Durban Symphonic Choir and the Ekuthuleni Primary School Choir.
The soloists were Beverley Chiat (soprano), Nicholas Nicholaidis (tenor) and Njabulo Madlala (baritone).
The solo parts are particularly challenging, encompassing a huge tonal range, from falsetto to bass, and these three South African performers acquitted themselves splendidly.
The baritone role is dominant, and Madlala displayed a big, resonant voice with beautifully expressive phrasing. Chiat had no problem with her exceptionally high notes, and Nicholaidis was equally impressive in his only solo item, sung in an unerring falsetto.
The choristers obviously enjoyed the music as much as the audience did, and they seemed to be inspired by Frantz’s conducting. He is now 70 years old but has an enormous vigour and enthusiasm. To him must go much of the credit for the success of the concert.
The evening opened with a rousing performance of Richard Strauss’ Don Juan. Written in 1888, it is a brilliantly orchestrated tonal picture of the legendary lover. The orchestra was in fine form, with the horn players extracting full value from their prominent part (the horn was one of Strauss’ favourite instruments). – Artsmart.co.za