Petrenko to Berlin Philharmonic

Boston Breathes a Sigh of Relief

By: Susan Hall - Jun 22, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

The Berlin Philharmonic has announced the successor to Sir Simon Rattle.  Andris Nelsons has often been suggested as a possibility by the press.  But Boston is safe for the moment.  Kirill Petrneko got the nod.

Petrenko is better known in Europe than he is here.  He has led the Berlin Philharmonic, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Orchestra of WDR Cologne, the Hamburg Philharmonic and the Hamburg NDR Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra RAI Torino and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, Kirill Petrenko has conducted concerts at the Salzburg and Bregenz Festivals. From summer 2013 Petrenko conducts a new production of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.

At Bayreuth he has survived what is regarded as a disasterous new Ring. From inside Bayreuth, we got this message, as two Wagner descedants battle in court over the Festival:  "It was always clear that Katharina would take over, and the fight now is just Bayreuth dysfunctional mayhem as usual. Frank Castorf 's Ring is said to be outmoded if anything, as his style of "Regietheater" is so 80s. In the US it would perhaps still considered shocking, but there are new approaches to the Ring since then."

Pirill's great strength is that he conducts from inside the music's score.