Orff: Carmina Burana Beethoven: Symphony No. 9.(Video Recording Review)

Battle; Lopardo, Allen; Shin-Yu Kai Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, Ozawa (Orff). Schwanewilms, Dever; Groves, Hawlata; Tokyo Opera Singers, Saito Kinen Orchestra, Ozawa (Beethoven). Texts and translations. Philips DVD B0002504-09, 134 mins.

Everybody's home DVD movie collection needs something dumb along the lines of Airplane. (Mine is Stuck on You, the one where Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play conjoined twins.) Perhaps classical music DVD collections need something puffy too, and this Carmina Burana will do nicely. It's an artifact from a time when camera angles were held for more than five seconds, when we could see whole sections of an orchestra, and when we could watch the players' faces instead of just their fingers. In short, it was a time when we could still concentrate on the music while the pictures were flashing, and performances didn't get an automatic knee-jerk standing ovation. Yes girls and boys, it's from way back in 1989.

Carmina is a big, dumb piece about the base instincts of drinking and sex. Wisely, Seiji Ozawa doesn't attempt to find any depths to plumb. (Orff didn't even bother to give any indications of character with his tempo markings, only metronome speeds.) Always the most balletic of conductors, Ozawa is a natural for video. He mimes drunkenness in "Olim lacus colueram" and virginity in the "Cour d'amours." The framing "Semper crescis" movements fly at a thrilling tempo, and ...