We’re hearing breath-stopping accounts of the Rosenkavalier revival at La Scala, conducted by Kirill Petrenko of the Berlin Philharmonic in his first appearance at the matrix of Italian opera.
Giornale della Musica reports ‘endless applause’ for a conductor who ‘exceeded all expectations, indeed he left us amazed with how he worked on the colours of the orchestra, bringing it to a state of grace’. Il Foglio writes that ‘maestro Kirill Petrenko triumphed, making hearts beat with the nervous and electric pace of the moments of “pure” comedy and paying homage to eternal Vienna.’
The pianist Luca Ciammarughi specifies: ‘Petrenko’s attitude towards the orchestra looks like someone who says “I expect the best from you, but I will never behave in a punitive or authoritarian way: I want something from you because I would like to enjoy it, with you, to the highest degree possible.” It is this dynamic, psychological more than technical, which explains what appeared to many a kind of “miracle” that the conductor performed with the Scala orchestra.’
Officials at La Scala are quietly congratulating themselves with the coup. The elusive Kirill Petrenko has never agreed to conduct at the Met, Covent Garden or Paris. But La Scala can now continue to maintain it attracts all the world’s great conductors, bar none.
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