Carmina Burana - Carl Orff - Ostia Antica

The Roman Theatre of Ostia Antica hosts a new production of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (1895-1982), conceived and directed by Nando Citarella, Stefano Saletti, and Pejman Tadayon of Cafè Lotì. Together with their folk ensemble—voices and ancient instruments—they bring around one hundred artists to the stage, including singers, musicians, and a choir, conducted by Maestro Giovanni Cernicchiaro. This unique show combines classical music with popular tradition, all enhanced by the "fiery alchemy" of Lucie Igniferi.

The Carmina Burana is a collection of religious and secular songs discovered in the Benediktbeuern Abbey and composed by wandering clerics from the 12th to the 13th century, which Carl Orff, with the help of Michel Hofmann, selected and organized into a libretto, mainly in Latin, but also in medieval German and Old Provençal, giving rise to the eponymous composition of 1937.

The performance project aims to bring back to their origins the spirit of a multilingual and multicultural mosaic that animated the tales and stories narrated in the Codex Buranus, later known as Carmina Burana. The authors of the Codex were wandering clerics, the so-called goliards or clerici vagantes, who, like minstrels and storytellers, composed the collection of songs later discovered in the Abbey of Benediktbeuern from the 12th to the 13th centuries. The content of their compositions was highly varied, ranging from poems on doctrinal, religious, or polemical subjects to others that sang of love, wine, and nature with a popular accent. In addition to Latin and German, the performance draws on the "languages" of various popular traditions, from Sicilian to Neapolitan to Sabir, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean ports.

The show, organized by the Ostia Antica Festival, transforms the ancient Roman theater into an exceptional stage, with its natural acoustics and the evocative atmosphere it emanates, where the beauty of the music blends with the majesty of a wonderful archaeological site.

Photo: Facebook official page of the event