Kirill Petrenko conducts Mozart and Schumann

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.

The London Times described Louise Alder as a “terrific talent, combining a big, lustrous voice with flawless intonation and keen intelligence”. According to the British soprano, she was surrounded by classical music all her life: “I am the daughter of two professional musicians who spent my childhood juggling their diaries so that one of them was at home while the other went on tour.” Louise Alder studied at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Music in London, where she graduated in 2013 from the International Opera School as the first Kiri Te Kanawa scholar. After spectacular successes in several competitions, she was a member of the Frankfurt Opera ensemble from 2014 to 2019, where she appeared in roles such as Gilda (Rigoletto), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Despina (Così fan tutte), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Musetta (La Bohème) and the title role in Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Guest appearances have taken her to such prestigious opera houses as the Vienna Staatsoper, London’s Royal Opera House and the Bavarian State Opera. She is very active on Instagram and other social media platforms: “I want to show all sides of what it means to be a singer, what it means to travel this much and to experience life in different countries and away from family.”

Wiebke Lehmkuhl loves to convey strong emotions with her singing. But intensity is more important to her than superficial brilliance. “You can also have unimaginative perfection on a recording. But with a live experience, with people on the stage who want to communicate something, to say something, that’s how you really reach others.” Although the internationally acclaimed contralto grew up with Baroque music, her repertoire ranges from Mozart and Beethoven to Mahler. And she is one of “the very few singers who can interpret both Wagner and Bach at a stylistically appropriate world-class level” (Die Welt). The contralto, a native of Oldenburg, Germany, initially studied the flute before starting her vocal training. After guest appearances in Kiel, Hamburg and Hanover, she began her first permanent engagement at the Zurich Opera House while she was still a student. Today, Wiebke Lehmkuhl appears regularly at the Bayreuth Festival, where she enjoyed successes as Magdalene in Die Meistersinger and Erda (Das Rheingold). She also creates a sensation on international concert stages, such as at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Orchestre de Paris and with the Berliner Philharmoniker, where she made her debut in December of 2013. Her most recent appearance with the orchestra was in performances of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

The Dutch tenor Linard Vrielink studied at Berlin University of the Arts and made his debut at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden during this time. From 2017 to 2020, he was a member of the opera studio of the Staatsoper, where he appeared, among other roles, as Spärlich (Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor), and Seemann and Hirte (Tristan und Isolde) with Daniel Barenboim as conductor. He sang Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at the Bergen Nasjonale Opera, Basilio (Le nozze di Figaro) at Staatsoper Hamburg and Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Bregenz Festival. He works regularly with Sir Simon Rattle, under whose direction he has appeared several times at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, with the Staatskapelle Berlin in Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, and as Arbace (Idomeneo) at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. He can currently be seen at the same house as the male lead in Peter Eötvös’ new opera Sleepless. With these concerts, Linard Vrielink makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Krešimir Stražanac was engaged as a permanent member of the ensemble at the Zurich Opera House when he was 24, immediately after his studies in Stuttgart. He stayed in Zurich for seven years, during which he acquired a wide stage repertoire with his “velvet-cushioned dark bass” and with “nimble voice leading and equally excellent diction” (klassik.com) in roles ranging from Baron Tusenbach in Peter Eötvös’s opera setting of Chekhov’s Three Sisters to Ping (Turandot), Hermann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) and Don Fernando in Beethoven’s Fidelio. In 2017 the Croatian bass-baritone made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera with great success as Pietro Fléville (Andrea Chénier). He has also appeared as a guest at the Frankfurt Opera, with the Bamberg Symphony (as Frank in a concert performance of Fledermaus) and in the role of Ambrosio in Weber’s Die drei Pintos with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Krešimir Stražanac has appeared in concert with many renowned orchestras in a wide repertoire ranging from the Baroque and Viennese Classicism to classical Modernism and contemporary music. Particularly important to his musical career has been his close collaboration with Philippe Herreweghe, under whom he has sung the bass parts in works such as Bach’s Passions and the B minor Mass, the Requiem settings of Brahms and Dvořák and Schumann’s oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri.

The Orfeó Català Choir is based at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona – a concert hall that, as one of the most spectacular examples of Catalan art nouveau, or Modernisme, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ensemble’s mission is to promote Catalan music and to present the most important works of choral literature in exemplary performances, under such renowned conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Jakub Hrůša, Kent Nagano and Sir Simon Rattle. The choir undertook a tour to China with Dudamel in 2018 and travelled to Madrid, Palma de Mallorca and Munich with the Munich Philharmonic the following year. The ensemble has appeared in London on three occasions: at Royal Festival Hall in 2015 and at Royal Albert Hall during the Proms in 2017 and 2019. The principal conductor of Orfeó Català is Pablo Larraz, Montse Meneses is assistant conductor and Simon Halsey is principal guest conductor. The choir appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker for the first time in 2013, when the orchestra and Simon Rattle presented Gabriel Faure’s Requiem in Barcelona. The highlight of their current collaboration will be the Europakonzert of the Berliner Philharmoniker on 1 May 2023 at the Basilica La Sagrada Família, when the participants in today’s concert again appear in Orfeó Català’s native city.