Chora Nova celebrates the conclusion of its 20th anniversary season with Carmina Burana, a commissioned work, and a post-concert party with the audience.
Chora Nova, a 50-voice Berkeley-based chorus, celebrates the conclusion of its 20th anniversary season with Carl Orff’s rousing Carmina Burana and The Brightest Sound, a commissioned work from James W. Cook, at First Church Berkeley UCC (also known as First Congregational Church) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 16. Artistic Director John Kendall Bailey conducts. Soloists for the performance are soprano Shawnette Sulker, tenor Joseph Meyers, and baritone Igor Vieira. The audience is invited to a post-concert celebration with the performers.
Carmina Burana was an enormous success at its premiere and has remained a worldwide favorite ever since. It’s tuneful, rhythmically straightforward and often propulsive, harmonically clear, and filled with fascinating poems that range from mystic to bawdy. Alone among 20th century choral works, its opening movement O Fortuna practically invites being sung in the shower—just as it has spawned a popular Internet game of concocting amusingly misheard English lyrics in place of the original Latin. Carmina Burana has also proven itself to be remarkably resistant to critical brickbats (“Neo-Neanderthal!”) and the faint whiff of Nazi associations that cling to composition and composer alike. (For the record, Orff was never an actual card-carrying Nazi, nor does Carmina Burana have anything to do with National Socialism.)
Orff intended Carmina Burana as a fully-staged work, and the 1937 premiere featured scenery, costumes, lighting, and dance—all a reflection of Orff’s fascination with ancient Greek theater and its synthesis of music, movement, language, and visuals. That multi-sensual quality has rendered the work particularly suitable as scoring for cinema and television alike, including TV commercials. The work is so vivid that its innate theatricality comes across even in the concert performances that are the norm today.
Chora Nova has commissioned its member James W. Cook to create a work in honor of this anniversary. The Brightest Sound celebrates music that comes from the heart.
Soprano Shawnette Sulker recently created world premiere performances of the roles Soprano Messiah Soloist (Never Mind by B. Bernstein), Bulrusher in the eponymously titled opera by Stookey with West Edge Opera, and Susan B. Anthony (Balls by Karpman) with Opera Parallèle. Other roles in her repertoire include The Queen of the Night, Zerbinetta, and Musetta. Recent performances featured her singing the role of Constanze (Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio) with Pacific Opera Project, a concert with the Poulenc Trio, and as soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Cantare Chorale. She’s sung with San Francisco Opera, American Bach Soloists, Mark Morris Dance Group, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Opera Montana, Opera Memphis, Opera Idaho, Eugene Symphony, and Winston-Salem Symphony, to name a few.
Tenor Joseph Meyers has performed from Shanghai to New Jersey. He has sung Carmina Burana, one of his specialties, with the symphonies of Santa Rosa, Kalamazoo, and Silicon Valley; and with Sacramento Ballet and Ballet San Jose (on tour in China). He sang the roles of Piangi in The Phantom of the Opera (first national tour) and of The Opera Singer in the 2009 Oscar winning movie Milk. Other roles/performances include: Andres in Wozzeck and Howard Boucher in Dead Man Walking with Opera Parallèle, West Side Story Suite with San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. He has also sung with West Edge Opera, Livermore Opera, and San Jose Playhouse, among others. Upcoming engagements include Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors in December.