Carmina Burana continues to offer a visual feast accompanied by magnificent music

Premiering last season, Carmina Burana will be staged again as a "choreographic stage cantata" on October 9-10, November 21-23, and December 4, 2024, at the Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) Türk Telekom Opera Hall, featuring a cast of approximately 250 people including soloists, the orchestra, the choir, ballet dancers, a children's choir and ballet, Modern Dance Istanbul artists, and special design teams.

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Carmina Burana continues to offer a visual feast accompanied by magnificent music

Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) Türk Telekom Opera Hall utilizes all the technical capabilities of its stage in this production, which transforms into a visual feast and showcases the mathematics of stagecraft.

Art lovers will witness the rotating stage, the movements of the front and rear wagons on the right and left, and the soffit pipes (the latticed ceiling designed to allow scenery to move on stage), each assigned a time code, as if they were all dancing together.

The production is directed by Volkan Ersoy, Deputy General Director of the State Opera and Ballet, and Ayşem Sunal Savaşkurt, Chief Choreographer of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet.

The 24 pieces in Carmina Burana are performed with choreography by Volkan Ersoy, as well as Deniz Özaydın, Berk Sarıbay, Özgür Adam İnanç, Alper Marangoz, and Ferhat Güneş, while the fact that MDT Istanbul artists and Istanbul State Opera and Ballet dancers are on stage together for the first time in this production enhances the work's dance narrative power.

In the production, Istanbul State Opera and Ballet soloists; sopranos Nazlı Deniz Süren and Evren Işık Yasemin; tenors Caner Akın and Ufuk Toker; and baritones Burak Kul and Kevork Tavityan will perform on stage in rotation throughout the season alongside the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet Choir.

Also known as the Beuern Songs, "Carmina Burana" consists of 254 poems and dramatic texts from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries found in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. It was composed as a stage cantata in 1936 by the German Carl Orff, who came from a musical family, based on poems selected from these texts, and was first performed at the Frankfurt Opera on June 8, 1937. Carmina Burana is the first work of Carl Orff's Trionfi (Triumphs) trilogy. Based on texts expressing nature and love, most parts of the work were written using Medieval Latin and some parts using Medieval German. The work consists of songs with a rhythmic and metric structure.

Bringing Carl Orff's unique music together with impressive dances and technological innovations, the work, which will meet the stage as a collective effort in every aspect, will once again leave unforgettable marks in the memories of art lovers. Carmina Burana will meet art lovers at the AKM Türk Telekom Opera Hall on September 28, October 9-10, November 21-23, and December 4, 2024.