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RLPO, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
THE Halle’s 2012-13 Pops season kicked off with a surprise - a guest orchestra rather than the Halle.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra joined the Halle Choir and Children’s Choir to offer a fabulous start to a run of concerts celebrating popular classical music.

Under the title Carmina Burana, the four pieces were a showcase for top-class musicians and the choirs, and for soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, tenor Richard Roberts and baritone Simone Thorpe.

The RLPO’s appearance under coductor Stephen Bell was due to the Halle’s recent tour of China; the orchestra returned to Manchester only on the day of the concert.

A strong start came with Mussorgsky’s colourful “Night on the Bare Mountain”, followed by a selection of Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne”, and Rogers and Thorpe in one of opera’s more popular duets, “Au fond du temple saint” from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers”.

The second half of the concert offered Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in its entirety — and no orchestra has ever failed to please an audience by playing it, which was the case here too.


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