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QuickTake:
The cantata, adapted from a series of medieval poems discovered in a Bavarian monastery, paired with a dance performance, will close this year's Oregon Bach Festival.
A bevy of robed monastic figures moved mechanically in time to Latin chants on the fickleness of fortune: “O Fortuna / velut Luna / statu variabilis / semper crescis.”
They came to circle a kneeling dancer, bent backward, face to the sky. The dancer, a tortured expression on their face, began to contort as if pulled by fate.
“O Fortuna,” a high-drama choral piece frequently used in film, is the opening of the “Carmina Burana,” an adaptation of medieval poetry found in a Bavarian monastery. What follows are slices of the human condition through a Middle Ages lens: a lively tavern scene with tankards tapping on-tempo, the temptation of maidens, the roasting of a swan.
Eugene Ballet is revisiting the cantata, which the company first danced to in 1993, for the closing show of the Oregon Bach Festival alongside a full orchestra and choir.
For Eugene Ballet, the performance is more than a period piece — it’s the final performance of the season for outgoing artistic director and resident choreographer Toni Pimble, who first choreographed the ballet in 1993.
“I feel that the work is pretty much a part of who I am, as far as the fluidity of the movement and musicality,” she said. “It feels like a really lovely way, actually, to end the season.”
Bringing ‘Carmina’ to the Bach festival
At a July 9 dress rehearsal, Ken-David Masur, the music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and a visiting conductor for the Bach festival, watched the dancers keenly as he marked up sheet music.
“Carmina Burana” is famous as a piece of classical music, not a ballet performance. Having a live orchestra, choir and conductor in addition to dancers means paying careful attention to timing.
Masur watched for moments that could be impacted by his conducting, like one note he planned to hold for a longer stretch that meant the dancers would have to hold their poses longer.
“Where are there moments where we should be absolutely staying, continuing a pulse?” Masur asked, to show his rehearsal thought process. “Where do we actually have the freedom to shape a little bit more?”
Collaborations between the Bach festival and Eugene Ballet are not typical, as the festival takes place during the company’s summer off-season. “Carmina Burana” is also not a Bach composition; the German composer Carl Orff wrote it in the 1930s. (Bach’s music still will be present. “Carmina” is preceded by Bach’s “Concerto for Three Violins,” which Pimble choreographed as “Concerto for Seven Dancers.”)
The path to the Bach festival required a stop in Kansas City. In 2012, Pimble was a visiting choreographer at the Kansas City Ballet, which performed her “Carmina” and added it to its repertoire.
At the time, Sabrina Madison-Cannon was in Kansas City and saw the ballet. She had never heard of Pimble or the Eugene Ballet and thought the performance was beautiful.
Later, when she was interviewing for the job as the dean of the School of Music and Dance at the University of Oregon, Pimble and her “Carmina” — especially its graceful, abstracted treatment of the original medieval text — stayed on her mind. When she got the job, getting the performance at the Bach festival was a priority.
“It’s so easy to be very literal and incredibly narrative all the way through a work like ‘Carmina Burana,’” Madison-Cannon said. “Toni didn’t seem to do that.”
A fitting ending
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed plans to bring “Carmina” to the festival, Pimble said, pushing the performance to 2025. It is now an unexpected close to Pimble’s time with the Eugene Ballet. (She will still be involved but is stepping back ahead of next season. Jennifer Martin will take over as artistic director, and Suzanne Haag will be the resident choreographer.)
For Antonio Lopez, the dancer circled by the robed figures in the ballet, it’s not just a farewell to Pimble. Lopez will be taking their final bow at the end of the performance after five years with the company, one of three dancers ending their time at Eugene Ballet with “Carmina Burana.”
They said their departure means the dance at the beginning — pulled in different directions by fate — didn’t require much acting.
“It’s all of the emotions that are tied to my co-workers, and the life that I’ve built here over the last five years with this company,” they said. “I’m still processing it, and I’m just trying to be as present and in the moment as I can. I do think it’s actually very helpful for the role.”
How to see ‘Carmina Burana’ at the Oregon Bach Festival
The performance of “Carmina Burana” will take place at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13, at the Silva Concert Hall in the Hult Center. A preshow talk with Pimble, Masur and Madison-Cannon onstage will begin at 1:30 p.m.
The concert opens with a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Concerto for Three Violins.” That will be accompanied by seven dancers and the violinist Rahel Rilling, the daughter of Oregon Bach Festival co-founder Helmuth Rilling.
Limited tickets in the mezzanine, front and rear orchestras are still available for purchase online. But you’ll need to act quickly. The show is close to selling out.
