Organization

Conductor

Kirill Petrenko

Singer

Soprano

Diana Damrau

Orchestra

Berliner Philharmoniker

New Year’s Eve Concert with Kirill Petrenko and Diana Damrau

Berlin

Germany

Berliner Philharmonie

A lively way to see out the year with the orchestra’s new leader: on this programme Kirill Petrenko presented himself to the Berlin Philharmonic’s audience from a new musical angle – as an interpreter of catchy Broadway melodies. Diana Damrau, performing with the Philharmoniker for the first time, accompanied him on his excursion into the field of musicals. She has, however, already worked with Petrenko a number of times and she raves about his conducting style: “He’s a magician!” The soprano, who established her international fame with the virtuoso role of the Queen of the Night in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Magic Flute, is considered one of the leading singers in the lyric and coloratura repertoire. She gave her stage debut in a completely different genre, however: as Eliza in Frederick Loewe’s musical My Fair Lady in Würzburg in 1995.

Diana Damrau shows she is consummately proficient in the musical genre on this programme with hits by Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Harold Arlen and Kurt Weill, composer of the Threepenny Opera, who emigrated to the US in the 1930s after the National Socialists took power, and began a major Broadway career. In addition, she assumes the role of Maria in Leonard Bernstein’s successful musical West Side Story with the song I feel pretty. The work is a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in New York, in which two rival youth gangs destroy the love between a boy from the Bronx and a Puerto Rican girl. Bernstein succeeded in this work in bringing about a fascinating synthesis of classical music, jazz and Latin American dance rhythms. Three years after the acclaimed premiere, the composer compiled the zippiest dance movements into a symphonic suite.

George Gershwin’s symphonic poem An American in Paris can by all means be understood as musical autobiography. In it, the composer portrays impressions he got as a young American student in Paris: the street noise, the moods on the street, in bars and cafés, his own homesickness, ultimately driven away by enthusiasm about the French “savoir vivre”.

New Year’s Eve Concert with Kirill Petrenko and Diana Damrau: Concert Various

Public

Concert

Approved

The Berliner Philharmoniker and their new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko invite you to a glamorous night, in the “New Year’s Eve Concert 2019”! This is the ...

For the first time, the new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko was at the helm for the Berliner Philharmoniker’s New Year’s Eve Concert – which revealed a new, vibrant facet to Petrenko’s repertoire. While German and Russian composers have been the main focus of his previous Philharmoniker concerts, this evening’s programme takes us on a musical journey to the USA: with dances from Bernstein’s West Side Story and Gershwin’s An American in Paris. You can also hear star soprano Diana Damrau in captivating songs from musicals.

English

New Year’s Eve Concert with Kirill Petrenko and Diana Damrau by Various, From (2019/2019), Conductor Kirill Petrenko, Berliner Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Ensemble

Programme, About & Synopsis

Videos

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues