Berlin’s Petrenko withdraws with ‘serious health problems’
OrchestrasThe Bergen Philharmonic in Norway has made a late conductor switch for this week’s performances of Elektra. It says:
Due to unexpected serious health problems Kirill Petrenko, who arrived yesterday in Bergen, was forced to withdraw with his deepest regret only a few hours before the rehearsal start from the project to which he was looking forward so much since a long time and which was extremely important to him. He promised to come back to Bergen and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra as soon as possible for a new project.
We are very pleased that Chief Conductor Edward Gardner has accepted to replace Mr Petrenko as conductor for the two Elektra performances on 13 and 15 December.
I consider Petrenko to be the best conductor alive today. If you’ve ever experienced his music making live, if you’ve ever seen him rehearse- he truly is on a class of his one.
However… does he have Kleiber-syndrome? Or does he actually suffer physically so much?
He has canceled the Munich Phil, Concertgebouw, and now Bergen Phil, all in the last year.
Why does he seem to always cancel outside of his comfort zone?
What is a Kleiber-syndrome?
The Japanese called him “the Cancellation Devil”. Does this provide a clue?
Being very overrated
Wish him well. He seems a nice guy.
Work shy. Karajan once said “Klieber only works when the fridge is empty”.
Kleiber was beloved by the orchestras he conducted. Karajan stole from the Berlin Phil in endless videos where he pocketed the residuals through a scheme devised by Gelb and Wilford.
“Karajan stole from the Berlin Phil in endless videos where he pocketed the residuals through a scheme devised by Gelb and Wilford.”
– Actually, Karajan made his Philharmonic musicians multimillionaires with his videos. Get the sources right and get over your hatred. Karajan has been dead soon 35 years, and conductors who make their orchestras rich don’t exist anymore.
he had a big fridge
I think Kleiber is quoted saying that..
It’s a sudden alergy appearing just before a performance with a serious itch at indiscrete places.
He has cancelled before in Berlin since taking over at the helm. He may well have some kind of excessive anxiety or panic attacks which stop him from going ahead. Before he was appointed the Berlin Philharmonic’s new chief conductor, he was due to conduct them in Mahler 6, and was even already in the city, and then cancelled just before the concert. Why did Martha Argerich so often cancel in the past? Same problem? Who knows!
Mahler 6th, so audacious….his symphonic repertoire is not exciting…
A superlative artist musician like Petrenko – and Kleiber – is often super-humanly sensitive. They see and feel things with such breathtaking depth and clarity. In my experience, they are also rather sensitive in body, mind and spirit. On top of this is probably an awareness of what people generally expect of them in a performance. I imagine it heightens the anxiety to reach yet again that summit of transfiguration which could create a crippling feeling when they’re not feeling they’re “in the zone”. Frankly, I’d give them all the leeway they need to create yet another soulfully satisfying performance. In this jet-age of instant gratification, isn’t it refreshing to acknowledge some things are truly worth waiting for?
Or, alternatively, he could just simply show up for a contracted gig and just get on with it. But, then, there would be no “mystique.”
Total Codswallop
<His repertoire is far bigger then 15 works.
Maybe he’s the best, but that’s not good news, because he’s just a good conductor and BPO a good orchestra you cannot recognize by ear as being special among it’s peers…
Perhaps that is partially true, in that certain people can’t tell the difference between Berlin and other orchestras. After all, not everyone has achieved that level of discernment; some just substitute declarative internet rants to sidestep that fact.
Edward Gardner is a better conductor by a long shot, infact the best ‘young’ conductor in the UK right now.
I’m sorry, but in what universe is Gardner a better conductor. Everything I’ve heard from his is appalling. Indeed I’ve never heard anything other than an amateurish performance from him. Or is it only because he’s British that you feel the need to celebrated him?
Bergen Philharmonic? Why?
Please, don’t tell me because “they are great, blah blah blah”, yeah, we’re all great, I’m serious, why?
Bergen Phil is great. we are great. you are not,based on your silly comment.
Bergen means ‘mountains’. They are already great to begin with, it is inescapable.
Kirill Petrenko is the best conductor alive today? Of course, there is nothing inherently questionable about such a personal opinion, but in my view all “big” name conductors are at least a bit overrated in some repertoire. I would hypothesize that many of the most skilled and inspirational conductors do not lead the “best” orchestras. There are so many factors: it depends on the repertoire, the orchestra, and even the hall.
“Confused” had odd wording, but I agree with his thinking.
I think Petrenko has such high artistic expectations of himself, that whenever he feels like he won’t be able tu fulfill them, he cancels.
The Bergen Philharmonic is a terrific orchestra, but not one I’d usually think the Berlin Philharmonic’s director would visit. So big props to Petrenko for going there, unfortunate as it is that he had to withdraw. Elektra with Petrenko was surely something the Bergen musicians considered a highlight of the season, if not the decade. I’m sure it will go fine with Edward Gardner, of course, but I hope Petrenko is good on his word to return soon.
Get well soon, Kirill! Wishing him a speedy recovery.
Sadly seeing K. Petrenko cancels again. I suspect similarly to the other readers above, that the health problem might be due to a mix of very high expectation from oneself and anxiety of potentially not able to fullfil them.
Petrenko seems like to work on the major works(in this case Elektra) on guest conducting before performing it with the BPO. If any consolation, the Mendelsohn Elias(cancelled with MPO) with BPO was quite spectacular and this might also happen with Elektra coming April
I have heard he suffers from éclat multiples.
What’s going on this week?
He cancelled, R. Capucon cancelled his Chicago gig, J. Jansen cancelled Oxford & …
Time to buy some more healthcare industry shares?
They talk to each other with their cell phone and pick-up a computer bug.
I’ve written before in these august columns that KP’s conducting style is unsustainable. He puts his body under unbelievable tension from beginning to end of any rehearsal or performance. He has world-class pecs and biceps yet never goes to the gym. This tension is probably at the root of his back trouble, too.
Or, how about this: maybe he has an actual medical issue, the nature of which is none of our business. As any reasonably intelligent person knows, medical issues can be aggravated by tension, overwork, or any other factor associated with travel under pressure.
Yes indeed.
There was much grumbling over Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s many cancellations, with unsympathetic speculation over supposed psychosomatic reasons, grumbling silenced only by the announcement of her death at age 52 (breast cancer).
Poor Jackie Du Pre got even worse treatment, pushed out on stage even as her hands weakened, unaware herself of the fatal diagnosis . . .
I find this comment on the Classics Today website by critic David Hurwitz, in his review of Petrenko’s Mahler 7 with the Bavarian State Orchestra on its own in-house label, to have the value of provocation:
“Petrenko is one of those narcissistic “artistes” who disdains recordings, thereby cleverly ensuring that whatever he does gets extra scrutiny; but like all such poseurs, at least on evidence here, his much ballyhooed “principles” serve only to conceal an empty suit. What use is talent or virtuosity for its own sake, unallied to musical intelligence or emotional sympathy? Here is your answer.”
Of course, in 2022, the Gramophone Magazine Gramophone Awards made this recording the winner in its orchestral category.
My vote for an alluring Kirill Petrenko commercial recording or two would be the ones he made of Josef Suk’s orchestral compositions with the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin, on the German cpo label, especially The Ripening, Op.34.
In any case, one hopes Kirill Petrenko will recover quickly.
Mr Hurwitz is very knowledgeable but also an excentric, so any opinion of his has to be taken with a pin of salt.
We have here a big pot filled to the brim with all the pins of salt taken from that website!
Sally
Nothing says ‘Christmas’ like a performance of Elektra
Frankly, NL, I am flabergasted that, as a classical music journalist, you are not more aware of the significant role played by musicialchairs in recruiting classical musicians for performance work and academic posts worldwide.
To those suggesting that Brexit is not harming the UK music scene, you are much mistaken. British and British-based musicians have, for decades, worked for opera houses, orchestras and festivals throughout Europe on a whole variety of contracts from one-off gigs and jump-ins to more permanent employment through the EU’s freedom of movement. Brexit has made undertaking much of this performance work either impossible or untenable, due to visa costs and complications, and contracts formerly fulfilled by UK musicians are now being offered to EU-based ones.
‘Kirill Petrenko is the best conductor alive today’, I don’t know. Fact is that the Berliner Philharmoniker is an orchestra with world class musicians playing on top-of-the-bill instruments. Even if they have a bad week with a terrible conductor they sound good. So maybe conductors make smaller differences in the top league then they (can) make with ‘mediocre’ and subtop orchestras. So if we talk about the ‘best conductors alive’, do we have to talk about those names working with the famous orchestra’s or do we have to talk about lesser known names who are really pimping the lesser known bands?
Joke from the Vienna Phiharmonic:
At entering the hall on the first rehearsel under famous conductor XXXXX, one player says to another: ‘What are we doing this morning?’ on which the other answers: ‘What he’s doing I don’t know but WE are doing Brahms two.’
Ouch, that IS an old one. I remember a London review of a Karajan/Berliner concert in about 1963. I paraphrase: “He flicks back the greying mane, glances over his shoulder at the audience, as if to say “Just listen to that sound! By the way, we are playing Brahms.”