When 20th-century composer Carl Orff discovered a newly published set of ribald songs and sacred poems (penned by 13th-century university students), he knew he'd found the script for his masterwork, “Carmina Burana.”

Orff's vision was “total theatre”: a fully staged drama that interwove music, words, visual design and dance. He described his composition as “secular songs for soloists and choruses, accompanied by instruments and magic images.”

He wanted to overwhelm the senses.

An overwhelmed and thoroughly entertained audience packed the Silva Theater last weekend for the Eugene Ballet Company's two performances of “Carmina Burana.” The hour-long extravaganza followed choreographer Toni Pimble's lyrical “Still Falls the Rain,” a contemporary dance en pointe in eight movements, that was filled with prayerful gestures and expressions of love.

During a pre-show “cookies, coffee and chat” in the Hult Center's downstairs Jacobs Gallery, EBC's managing director Riley Grannan hinted at the enormity of engineering “Carmina Burana”: a collaboration between ballet dancers, opera singers, a stage full of choristers, a 49-member orchestra and a children's choir.

Throw in medieval monks, a fairytale bed chamber draped with panels of billowing silk and a scene that features a spit-roasted prima ballerina swan, and we're approaching the swoon-level of Carl Orff's visionary “total theatre.”

Grannan described the part sung by guest soloist James Bobick as one of the most difficult baritone roles in existence. Bobick is singing the part again this week in New York City, in a production at Avery Fisher Hall.

Grannan declared soprano Maria D'Amato's role as “stratospheric in range,” describing “Carmina Burana” as, “the ‘big show.' It includes just about everything. Except animals.”

The world of high medieval Europe was one of prayer and poetry, peasants and aristocracy, castles and crusades. Of the 250 poems, Orff chose 24 to serve as his foundation, taking inspiration from scenes of lust, religious devotion, gluttony, and the medieval acceptance of Fortune's great spinning wheel.

That wheel was onstage last weekend, in the form of a rose window created by set designer Thomas Coates. Spread-eagled against the jewel-toned set piece, dancer Adam Still was sent spinning several times during the ballet, da Vinci's Vitruvian Man impaled on Fortune's wheel.

In our age of iPods and Internet and instant text messages, it's difficult to describe the excitement generated by Pimble's choreography in “Carmina Burana.” The dancers became images of the Middle Ages, their bodies conveying the stories like the carvings on a great cathedral: some, grotesque and others, gorgeous.

Particularly powerful was the scene in the Court of Love, when Bobick and principal dancer Ra-bul Seo brandished weapons of voice and movement, in an unusual and highly dramatic duel.

In the tavern scenes, the energy level was intense. First, the dancers were rowdy gamblers, and then they were swooning from drink. The choristers sang, swinging their pewter-colored drinking steins. The tenor lamented the roasting of the swan, and the Benedictines pounded their tables with cutlery; knives and forks adding a percussive crash to the driving rhythm of the songs.

The Eugene Ballet Company's “Carmina Burana” is more than a ballet - it's a pageant! Color, movement, silken voices and in the end, a modest, classically posed Venus, standing on a half-shell and rising into the firmament.

“Carmina Burana” is a mix of medieval songs from a Bavarian monastery, melded into total theater by Carl Orff in 1937 and staged by Toni Pimble, just last week.

Bravo, Fortuna! Carpe diem!

Teri Albert reviews art and artists for the Ballyhoo! page of The World. Comments on or story ideas for this column are welcome, and can be e-mailed to malbert@uci.net.