All the world knows Carmina Burana, or at least the opening and closing chorus, “O Fortuna!,” blaring across commercials and soundtracks without number. Other than that, the vast catalogue of the composer Carl Orff’s prophetic works remains, for the general public, a Book with Seven Seals. His valedictory opera-oratorio De Temporum Fine Comoedia (Play of the End of Time), populated by nine sybils, Lucifer, and other apocalyptic presences, received its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival under the baton of the legendary Herbert von Karajan. The dreadnought Teodor Currentzis conducts this summer’s overdue revival, with the stage wizard Romeo Castellucci in tow to blow our minds with visionary froufrou. As a curtain raiser, there’s Béla Bartók’s gloomy, glorious fable Bluebeard’s Castle, which by comparison to the Orff is practically a warhorse.
—Matthew Gurewitsch