Carmina Burana

The 24 poems set to music by Orff, mainly in Latin, but also including some in Old High German and one in Provençal, are taken from a collection of 11th and 12th century Medieval poems discovered in the monastery of Benediktbeuern, near Bad Tölz in Bavaria, and handed down through time thanks to an important manuscript contained in a 13th century illuminated manuscript, the Codex Latinus Monacensis 4550 or Codex Buranus: hence the title Carmina Burana, introduced in 1847 by scholar Johann Andreas Schmeller on the occasion of the manuscript’s first publication. It is therefore a text that well reflects the birth of the multilingual internationalist spirit of the Imperial and Byzantine Middle Ages following the first dark centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and therefore perfect for the extremely international audiences during Verona’s summer, a true melting pot of countless nationalities united by a common desire for music and spectacle. But it is also a solemn musical text that is perfect for the impressive setting of the Arena, which naturally takes the scenic cantata into a grandiose setting that only the Amphitheatre’s magnificence manages to achieve.