If any piece of classical music can withstand rock-arena amplification, lasers, fireworks, earthquakes and probably a collision with an asteroid as well, it is Carmina Burana. Its music is as vulgar as its origins are dubious.

It was written in 1937 by Carl Orff, an enthusiastic Nazi who notoriously also wrote new music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream so that the immortal score by the Jewish Mendelssohn could be banned.

And Carmina Burana’s tub-thumping rhythms, thigh-slapping drinking songs and lurid odes to strenuous Teutonic rumpy-pumpy served as a tremendous morale-booster in Germany throughout the war.

Despite this unfortunate connection, it has achieved lasting popularity with choirs across the world. And it is no stranger to mass performances. At the Proms in 1998, it was hurled out by 1,000 voices.

Subtlety isn’t its most notable quality – but that will be an advantage under the vast dome of the O2 arena. As with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Handel’s Fireworks Music and Ravel’s Bolero, you feel that it was composed with just such a bloated, over-the-top spectacle in mind.

And amplification techniques have improved so much over the past 20 years that there’s no real danger of such hearty music being distorted beyond recognition.

As for the plans to stage Carmen and Aida in the same colossal way – well, nothing new there. In the 1980s I witnessed an epic production of Aida at the Pyramids, during which a huge procession of camels trundled across the desert from the direction of Libya. Routing the Grand March through the back streets of South London may not have quite the same impact.

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