From Playful Salonen, a Little Night Mischief

There are few places where programming Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” will raise an eyebrow. However much this boisterously popular setting of secular medieval Latin poems is viewed as splashy junk fare, many of today’s respected conductors--including James Levine, Christian Thielemann and Franz Welser-Most--have recorded it in recent years. The latest is a sound spectacular from the Atlanta Symphony led by Donald Runnicles, who is currently doing a fine job in San Francisco conducting Messiaen’s uncompromising opera, “Saint Francois d’Assise.”

Still, it was quite a surprise Thursday night that Esa-Pekka Salonen opened the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new season with “Carmina Burana.” This was the last opening-night concert in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion before the Philharmonic moves to the Walt Disney Concert Hall next season, and Salonen, one of the most intellectually curious and imaginative conductors in the business, tends to shun the obvious, of which there is much in “Carmina Burana.”

But after 10 seasons in L.A., Esa-Pekka Salonen has also lightened up a lot, letting his mischievous side out more and more in public. And what better way to thwart expectations than for him to approach his first time with the Orff score with the kind of winning relish that only accompanies a guilty pleasure? Provocatively pairing “Carmina Burana” with the suite to Bartok’s ballet-pantomime “The Miraculous Mandarin,” the Philharmonic decided to save the big, serious orchestral statements, of which there will be no shortage, until later in the season. First let there be kinky sex and games, which, if you think about it, is very L.A. after all.

As the savory before the sweet, Bartok’s music did much to help make Orff’s considerably more palatable and interesting. Written in 1924, “Miraculous Mandarin” vividly describes through music a brazen scenario. Three thugs compel a prostitute to lure an old man and a student to her room for a shakedown. The third victim is the spectral, supernatural Mandarin. They try to murder him, but he can die only through the cathartic force of physical love.

The suite, which does not include that final catharsis, is slightly less sensational than the full work, but still ripe with seductive sounds, instrumental violence and some of Bartok’s most striking orchestral effects. And Salonen got the Philharmonic reveling in it, with thrilling massed climaxes. The men are lured with the sounds of increasingly lurid wind solos, and clarinetist Michele Zukovsky and oboist David Weiss made them marvelously effective.

Compared with “Miraculous Mandarin,” “Carmina Burana” can seem like an idealized Middle Ages Oktoberfest--Latin poems about love, drink, gambling, clergy and fickle fate all given beery Bavarian cheer in Orff’s music.

But for the blustery simple-mindedness of this 1936 German score, written in a time and place where the definition of decadence was extensive, there is also a subtle craft at work. The simple directness of much of the score has an unmistakable elegance and individuality.

The performance was highly entertaining. Salonen played everything for good-natured theatrical effect. The three soloists seemed to be having a fine time. Rodney Gilfry was the highly expressive baritone, manipulating his melodies as lyrically as he could. Tenor Sanford Olsen made a funny drunk and produced an exhilarating sound. Soprano Harolyn Blackwell, after a slight initial unsteadiness, floated some startlingly effective high notes. The L.A. Master Chorale sang with gusto and clarity; the L.A. Children’s Chorus added to the liveliness and good nature.

Hearing that good nature, however, with ears prepared by the Bartok’s nasty tale, was instructive. It reminded us that “Carmina Burana’s” wide appeal is not only its surface innocence, but also the recognition that Orff’s musical merrymaking had a necessarily provocative, unspoken edge to it.

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic program repeats tonight at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., $14-$82, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. (323) 850-2000.