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Kirill Petrenko is back

You won’t want to miss this: the acclaimed chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Kirill Petrenko, is conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra! Ten years after his stunning first appearance, Petrenko now returns with a glittering programme full of dance and colour featuring Berg’s Drei Orchesterstücke and Bartók’s first major success, the fairy ballet The Wooden Prince.
image: Wilfried Hösl
image: Wilfried Hösl

Kirill Petrenko is one of the greatest conductors of our time. Few can breathe such life into both orchestral and operatic repertoire with so much love and precision. After studying in Vienna (Petrenko, born in Omsk, has been an Austrian citizen since the age of eighteen), he established a reputation for himself heading up several European opera houses. As Generalmusikdirektor of the Meiningen Staatstheater, he garnered great acclaim in 2001 conducting Wagner’s complete Ring cycle. He then served as Generalmusikdirektor of the Komische Oper Berlin until 2007.

For several years, Petrenko then focused primarily on guest conducting, first appearing with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2013. ‘With his versatile body language and his enthusiastic rapport with the orchestra, Petrenko makes an experience of it,’ wrote the Dutch daily De Volkskrant. He was appointed as Generalmusikdirektor of the Bavarian State Opera that same year. He later charmed audiences at the Bayreuth Festival, the internationally acknowledged Mecca for Wagner’s music, with a new production of the Ring cycle.

Petrenko succeeded Sir Simon Rattle as Musikdirektor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019, and has garnered critical acclaim in that capacity ever since. 

And now, the time has finally come – Kirill Petrenko is returning to the Concertgebouw Orchestra ten years since their first collaboration together. The programme features two unequivocal classics composed around 1915: the Drei Orchesterstücke by Alban Berg and The Wooden Prince, Béla Bartók’s major breakthrough.

Kirill Petrenko (photo: Wilfried Hösl)
Kirill Petrenko (photo: Wilfried Hösl)

Drei Orchesterstücke

Alban Berg’s Drei Orchesterstücke, op. 6 is a rather complex and layered composition, but also happens to be one of the most colourful and dance-like works of the Second Viennese School. It took quite a long time before the Netherlands was ready for it – indeed, the Concertgebouw Orchestra passed over Berg’s music for decades. The conductor Hans Rosbaud, who first led the orchestra in the Drei Orchesterstücke in 1961, was instrumental in making Berg’s music what has long since been a much-loved part of its repertoire (we need only think of the magnificent Violin Concerto, for instance). The Dutch premiere was well received by the press, and since Bernard Haitink, too, would conduct the work six years later, audiences came to be more and more taken with this intriguing music.

The Wooden Prince

The Wooden Prince is another story altogether. Although Béla Bartók had been a favourite of the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s since 1925, his ballet The Wooden Prince was never incorporated into the repertoire – perhaps because the work’s reputation suffered from the rather peculiar storyline. Iván Fischer demonstrated just how brilliant the music is back in 2001. Now it’s Kirill Petrenko’s turn to bring this colourful ballet music to life. It’s only the second time the Concertgebouw Orchestra will have performed The Wooden Prince. Don’t miss it!