Carmina Burana

Carl Orff’s choral crowdpleaser gets the full production from Dubai Singers & Orchestra – some 120 singers accompanied by a 50-piece orchestra.

It will be conducted by Dubai Singers’ Music Director Jennie Lee-Foster, The performance will feature a trio of soloists: soprano Ana Kovacevic and tenor Charles McGlone (both local) plus bass James Atkinson, flying in specially from the UK. Dubai Singers will also be joined by members of the Abu Dhabi-based Al Khabairat Choral Society.

Camena Burana is an exciting work musically, percussive and highly rhythmical. Its background is interesting too; the cantata is based on a collection of Mediaeval poems and dramatic texts of the same name, written (probably) by students, clergy and young monks. Most of the pieces are irreverent and satirical, some are very bawdy too. There are more than 250 in total, but Carl Orff only picked a couple of dozen for his work.

Orff actually expected performances of Carmena Burana to incorporate something else happening on the stage, dance or theatre (or in some productions a kind of live painting session); that rarely happens these days, though this time there will be a musical interlude featuring an ensemble from the Dubai Ballet Centre.

Doors open at 6.30pm, and there will be an iftar in the lobby area before the performance starts at 8pm.