MANSFIELD, PA—The Mansfield University Festival Chorus, under the
direction of Peggy Dettwiler, will present Carl Orff’s dynamic cantata, Carmina Burana, on Saturday, April 26, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 27, 2:30 p.m. in Steadman Theatre.
The Festival Chorus has performed this famous work at MU on two other occasions, in 1995 and in 2002, and it has remained a favorite for singers and audiences alike.
Joining the choristers will be Katherine Wessinger, soprano from New York City, tenor Derrek Stark, a 2012 Mansfield graduate, and Todd Ranney, baritone on the MU Music faculty.
Stark, who will lend his high tenor voice to the work’s most idiosyncratic number, “the song of the swan in the frying pan,” is now a graduate student at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.
Also, the Hamilton-Gibson Children’s Choir, prepared by Thomas Putnam, will sing the parts for Ragazzi, the boys and girls choir.
Composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936, Carmina Burana is based on 24 poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana. The translation of the full Latin title means “Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magic images.”
The first and last movements are called Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World) and begin with the well-known O Fortuna, which provides the bookends for a series of songs about drinking, dancing, eating, carousing and making love.
MU’s presentation will feature the piano and percussion version that includes two grand pianos, with MU Professor Nancy Boston and Vicki Fensterbush at the keyboards, and a full battery of percussion, with Professor Adam Brennan playing the timpani.
Carmina Burana is “one of the few box office certainties in twentieth century music” according to music critic Michael Steinberg.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and $5 for students and children. They can be purchased online at music.mansfield.edu or by calling (570)662-4710. Tickets will also be available at the door.
The concert is supported in part by student activity fees.