Carmina Burana

Music

Carl Orff
Carmina Burana (1937)

Choreography

Kent Stowell

Costume Design

Theoni V. Aldredge and Larae Theige Hascall

Lighting Design

Randall G. Chiarelli

Scenic Design

Ming Cho Lee

Duration

70 minutes

Cast

38 dancers

Premiere

October 5, 1993
Pacific Northwest Ballet

Previous Performances

October 1993

November 1993

February 1995

September 1995 in Melbourne, Australia

September 1996

October 1996 at the Kennedy Center

September 1998

September 2001

April 2004

September 2004

April 2007

April 2012

May 2015

September 2022

Pacific Northwest Ballet Founding Artistic Director Kent Stowell’s magnificent rendering of Carl Orff’s 1937 musical cantata, Carmina Burana, has played to enthusiastic audiences since its Seattle premiere in 1993. Uniting sets, costumes, chorus, soloists, dancers, and choreography in a grandoise visualization of Orff’s primal score, Stowell’s Carmina Burana is that “total theater” which Orff dreamed might cut across social, educational, and temporal boundaries to engage audiences in a powerful communal experience.

For his text, Orff turned to a collection of irreverent medieval songs and poems discovered in 1803 at the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuren. Hence, Carmina Burana, or “Songs of Beuren.” In these profane lyrics of minstrels and monks long dead, Orff heard clearly the voice of the human condition, with its indestructible hunger for the sensual pleasures of the world persisting through the capricious turns of Fortune’s wheel. Setting this text to music of primitive force rivaled in our time only by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Orff married the medieval and the modern in a timeless vision of humanity’s vitality and endurance.

That musical vision takes on corporeal life in PNB’s production of Carmina Burana. Set designer Ming Cho Lee’s massive golden wheel of Fortune dominates the world of the ballet, as does musically the hymn to the goddess Fortuna, which opens and closes Orff’s score and frames all the various songs between. Beneath the wheel and subject to its rule, the dancers—cast as commoners, clerics, and aristocracy—express the indomitable yearning for fulfillment in love that persists no matter what life deals us.

Within each grouping and, reflecting the medieval interest in numerology as a key to divine order, Stowell has choreographed patterns based on the number twelve, thereby subtly reinforcing the experience of cosmic forces beyond human control. But, for all the limits placed upon our lives, Stowell suggests (through recurring contrasts between the clothed and the naked) that the first relationship in paradise, though it eludes us in this fallen world, informs our fantasies and may be experienced by us in moments of grace.

Notes by Jeanie Thomas, revised 2019.

Elle Macy in Kent Stowell's Carmina Burana
Kyle Davis in Kent Stowell's Carmina Burana. Photo © Angela Sterling.
PNB company dancers in Kent Stowell's Carmina Burana. Photo © Angela Sterling.
Lesley Rausch, Lucien Postlewaite, and PNB company dancers in Kent Stowell's Carmina Burana. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Artist Biographies

Kent Stowell

Kent Stowell was Artistic Director and principal choreographer of Pacific Northwest Ballet from 1977 until his retirement in June 2005.

Mr. Stowell began his dance training with Willam Christensen at the University of Utah, later joining San Francisco Ballet. He joined New York City Ballet in 1962 and was promoted to soloist in 1963. In 1970, he joined the Munich Opera Ballet as a leading dancer and choreographer. In 1973, Mr. Stowell was appointed ballet master and choreographer of Frankfurt Ballet, and he was named, with Francia Russell, Co-Artistic Director of the company in 1975. In 1977, Mr. Stowell and Ms. Russell were appointed Artistic Directors of Pacific Northwest Ballet. During his tenure, Mr. Stowell choreographed thirty-six ballets for the Company. His many contributions to the repertory include Swan Lake, Cinderella, Stowell & Sendak Nutcracker, Carmina Burana, Firebird, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Hail to the Conquering Hero, Carmen, and Silver Lining.

In 2001, the University of Utah honored Mr. Stowell with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Stowell’s other awards and honors include the Washington State Governor’s Arts Award, the Dance Magazine Award, an Honorary Doctor of Arts from the University of Washington, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Seattle University. In 2004, Stowell received the ArtsFund Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award, the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was recognized by the King County Council for his achievements in the arts.

Ming Cho Lee

Renowned scenic designer Ming Cho Lee (1930-2020) was born in Shanghai and moved to the US in 1949. Lee was co-chair of the Design department at Yale’s School of Drama. He designed for opera, dance, Broadway, and theater, and is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts. He established a rich collaborative relationship with Kent Stowell and PNB, designing sets for productions including Firebird (1989), Carmina Burana (1993), Silver Lining (1998), and Swan Lake (2003) among others.

Randall G. Chiarelli

Randall G. Chiarelli (1949-2024) devoted his career to lighting for dance, much of it at Pacific Northwest Ballet, and also for American Ballet Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, among others. His many collaborators included choreographers Donald Byrd, Mark Dendy, Ronald Hynd, Kent Stowell, Susan Stroman, and Christopher Wheeldon. Chiarelli graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in painting and sculpture.

Theoni V. Aldredge

With over 150 stage productions, numerous ballets, and several films to her credit, Oscar and Tony-winning costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge (1922-2011) ranks as one of the most prolific and successful designers of the late 20th century. Her Broadway resume includes costumes for the landmark musicals Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Annie (1977), and Dreamgirls (1982). In 1990, Aldredge was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in the Gershwin Theatre in New York.