Choir members sing during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star
Linus Lerner conducts the Southern Arizona symphony orchestra along with students from Marana High School and Rincon/University High School during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star
Saprano Liliana del Conde belts out a high note during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star
The Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra along with Marana High School and Rincon/University High School students performan the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star
Choir members from the Southern Arizona Sympony Orchestra, Marana High School and Rincon/University High School sing during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star
A violinist plays with the rest of an orchestra composed of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra along with students and faculty from Marana High School and Rincon/University High School during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star
Hugh Russell infused the "Carmina Burana" with theatrics and an exquisite voice.
Photo: Larry Lapidus
Soprano Hye Jung Lee, who is quickly making a name for herself, will make her "Carmina Burana" debut this weekend.
Courtesy Hye Jung Lee
TSO Principal Percussionist Homero Cerón was among the TSO musicians who helped Borderlands brew a special “Carmina Burana” beer, but Cerón said they pretty much wathced Borderlands brewers make the beer.
It’s a pretty sure bet that 9.9 out of every 10 people in the audience at this weekend’s performance of “Carmina Burana” will have never heard it done in the chamber version, as the Tucson Chamber Artists will perform it.
TCA Conductor and Music Director Eric Holtan will be one of them.
“I only know the fully orchestrated version so this is going to be a new experience for me, too,” Holtan said late last week.
It’s a good thing baritone Hugh Russell will be among the trio of soloists for the TCA’s three performances. Russell has performed the chamber version several times including with a choral group in his adopted home of Chicago.
“There are many things that sound similar to the full orchestral version,” said the 41-year-old Canada native. “I think it is easier to think of it as a completely different beast rather than think about what is really different and what’s not there.”
The chamber version, a highlight of the third annual Tucson Desert Song Festival that kicked off last weekend, will be performed by 32 members of Holtan’s TCA professional choir, a pair of pianists and six percussionists led by Homero Ceron, principal percussionist for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
The fully orchestrated version has 10 to 15 times more instrumentalists, including a full complement of string players. The choir in that version can number well beyond 100. Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra was the last to perform the work in Tucson, bringing in choristers from Tucson Girls Chorus, the Tucson Masterworks Chorale, the Catalina Foothills High School Chorus and the Catalinas Community Chorus. When you added in the full contingent of the orchestra, there were 240 people on the Catalina Foothills High School stage and balconies for the November 2009 performance.
But Russell, who says he will be on his 114th “Carmina Burana” by the time he takes the stage Friday night, says you won’t be missing much without the full orchestration.
“You still get that sense of all the percussion going on in this sort of clanging, wonderful cacophony,” he said. “It’s different but it’s the same intention.”
Soprano Hye Jung Lee will make her “Carmina Burana” debut this weekend — her second role debut in Tucson during the 2015 song festival. She was a last-minute replacement last weekend for the ailing soprano Heidi Grant Murphy to sing Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier” and Poulenc’s “Gloria.”
She was familiar with the Strauss having sung it while she was a graduate student at Indiana University in 2012. But she had never sung the Poulenc. (See review of Sunday’s concert and interview with Hye Jung at tucson.com/calientetunedin)
“It’s so great in its way as it’s very much like a ritual whether it’s sacred or secular,” she said of “Carmina Burana,” then added that being part of a big choral event like this weekend’s concerts “feels like I get to be a part of some kind of community, bigger than myself, rather than just playing my character as in opera.”
Holtan said the essence of Orff’s score remains unchanged in the stripped-down version.
“We still get the full array of the colors and volume of the percussion, but all of the colors of the orchestra the violins and bassoons are all executed by the piano parts,” he said. “Many people walk away from ‘Carmina Burana’ feeling like they went through something very physical or visceral. But my sense is that visceral feeling, you’re going to feel it more with just the piano and the other percussion instruments. Without all the other colors involved, I think it is going to be a more visceral experience for people.”
Photos: SASO partnered with local high schoolers to perform first show of Carmina Burana in Marana
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Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com or 573-4642.
If you go
What: Tucson Chamber Artists present the chamber version of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”
Featuring: Baritone Hugh Russell, soprano Hye Jung Lee and tenor Edwin Vega.
When and where: 7 p.m. Friday at Valley Presbyterian Church, 2800 S. Camino del Sol, Green Valley; 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive; and 3 p.m. Sunday at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St.
Tickets: $30 for Green Valley, $25 for Tucson performances at the door or online at tucsonchamberartists.org
Tucson Desert Song Festival Schedule:
• UA Presents hosts mezzo Susan Graham in a recital with pianist Malcolm Martineau at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 at Crowder Hall, North Park Avenue and East Speedway on the University of Arizona campus.
• Tucson Symphony Orchestra “Mozart and Mahler” with mezzo Tamara Mumford and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 7575 N. Paseo del Norte, Oro Valley. It repeats at 8 p.m. Jan. 31 and 2 p.m. Feb. 1 at Catalina Foothills High School.
• Arizona Opera presents Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” featuring soprano Corinne Winters, tenor Zach Borishcevksy and baritones David Adam Moore and Chris Carr at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 31 and 2 p.m. Feb. 1 at Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.
Linus Lerner conducts the Southern Arizona symphony orchestra along with students from Marana High School and Rincon/University High School during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
The Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra along with Marana High School and Rincon/University High School students performan the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
Choir members from the Southern Arizona Sympony Orchestra, Marana High School and Rincon/University High School sing during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
A violinist plays with the rest of an orchestra composed of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra along with students and faculty from Marana High School and Rincon/University High School during a performance of the opera Carmina Burana at Marana High School, on Nov. 8, 2019.
TSO Principal Percussionist Homero Cerón was among the TSO musicians who helped Borderlands brew a special “Carmina Burana” beer, but Cerón said they pretty much wathced Borderlands brewers make the beer.