Season opening concert

Kirill Petrenko conducts Mahler’s Seventh Symphony

Kirill Petrenko (photo: Stephan Rabold)

Kirill Petrenko appeared for the first time as a Mahler interpreter with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the beginning of 2020, conducting the Sixth Symphony. Critics and audience alike were thrilled by the “enthusiasm and virtually flawless precision” (The New York Times) of the performance. Now he opens the 2022/23 season with the Seventh Symphony. Mahler himself thought it was his “best work and preponderately cheerful in character”. Dark colours predominate over long stretches, however, nocturnal and eerie. Ambiguity and doubt are also mingled with the resounding joy of the finale.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Kirill Petrenko conductor

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 7

Season opening concert in cooperation with the Deutsche Bank

Dates and Tickets

Biographies

Kirill Petrenko

Kirill Petrenko has been chief conductor and artistic director of the Berliner Philharmoniker since the 2019/20 season. Born in Omsk in Siberia, he received his training first in his home town and later in Austria. He established his conducting career in opera with positions at the Meininger Theater and the Komische Oper Berlin. From 2013 to 2020, Kirill Petrenko was general music director of Bayerische Staatsoper. He has also made guest appearances at the world’s leading opera houses, including Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden in London, the Opéra national in Paris, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Bayreuth Festival. Moreover, he has conducted the major international symphony orchestras – in Vienna, Munich, Dresden, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Rome, Chicago, Cleveland and Israel. Since his debut in 2006, a variety of programmatic themes have emerged in his work together with the Berliner Philharmoniker. These include work on the orchestra’s core Classical-Romantic repertoire, most notably with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony when he took up his post. Unjustly forgotten composers such as Josef Suk and Erich Wolfgang Korngold are another of Kirill Petrenko’s interests. Russian works are also highlighted, with performances of Tchaikovsky’s operas Mazeppa, Iolanta and The Queen of Spades attracting particular attention recently.

People around Mahler

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