Robert Orth, one of my favorite baritones, is performing in Carmina Burana with the Elgin Symphony this weekend. You can find out more information about the performances at the Elgin Symphony website.

The orchestra plays this classic concert warhorse quite well, but the real highlight of the evening is Robert’s fantastic voice and style. He recently played Richard Nixon in Chicago Opera Theater’s run of Nixon in China (I was in the orchestra for this run), and he was absolutely outstanding–full of character and wit, getting the essence of Richard Nixon (his walk, facial expressions, and other mannerisms) spot-on while never resorting to parody.

Robert does an equally great job in Carmina Burana with a very different type of vocal part. His work in this piece sounds fantastic as well as being very colorful and entertaining, and it should prove to be a real thrill to anyone who can make one of the performances.

Also on the program is Darius Milhaud’s faux jazz ‘La création du monde’, with a great bass solo played by principal bassist Tim Shaffer. This fun piece will start the program.

For those of you who are itching to check out Carmina Burana, here is a video of the complete work (slightly over an hour) from a live performance in Rome. The first 4 1/2 minutes are just dead air with the chorus getting situated, but fast forward to that point and you can hear a good rendition of this work.

IF you’re interested in picking up a copy of either of these works, you can do so below:

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