If only, if only, if only… if only we had some more time to enjoy of the amazing cultural life of Budapest! Last Monday, the Palace of Arts of Budapest offered a delightful dance performance around Carl Orff’s masterpiece “Carmina Burana”.
Have you taken a look to the agenda of the Budapest Palace of Arts? Maybe you should: www.trafo.hu. Incredibly busy, the program offers classical and contemporary pieces of music, ballet, contemporary dance… OK, maybe not a plate for all tastes, but definitely something worth trying. Dance and music lovers will find it difficult to choose which events to attend!
The CEU Weekly attended last Monday the 29th of January to the famous classical piece “Carmina Burana”. For a little background, this masterpiece was composed in 1935-36 by the German composer Carl Orff (1895-1982), giving music to a series of medieval poems with the same title and written in German and Latin, and arranged in the shape of a scenic cantata, c’est à dire, a piece intended to be dance. Still not sure? The first verse “O fortuna… velut luna… statu variabilis…” is easily recognizable for almost everybody nowadays, and the song has been used as a soundtrack in many well-known movies (Excalibur, Haunt of the Red October, The General’s daughter…) and featured in many TV shows, including The Simpsons. It is one of the most reproduced classical pieces of the XXth century.
The Szeged Contemporary Ballet offered a memorable, renewed, mystical reinterpretation of this piece. Seemingly resembling a barbaric humanoid community touched by destiny and the cruelty of the ever-vanishing fortune, the dancers succeeded in translating the strength and weight of the music into subtle dances that managed to embody a whole arrange of feelings. Something wild, barbaric, like an animal instinct or a trapped fury is present all around the performance. The decoration was simple enough to help to the development of the story while not distracting the attention and adding just the necessary touch of colour and atmosphere it required. The dancers made their precisely-crafted choreography, making the audience stick to their seats in more than one occasion fearing for the integrity of their spines…
What else to say? It was a show difficult to brief in words. My judgement? Pay more attention to other performance in the Palace of Arts, and do not let another opportunity like this pass. Simply unforgettable.
Sergio Rejado Albaina (MESPOM)
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