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Kirill Petrenko Remains At The Bavarian State Opera

This article is more than 8 years old.

Earlier today it was announced that Kirill Petrenko, the next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, has renewed his current contract as music director of the Bavarian State Opera by three years until 2021.

The Bavarian State Minister for Culture, Dr. Ludwig Spaenle, signed the new contracts with him and the Bavarian State Opera’s Intendant Nikolaus Bachler who brought Petrenko to the house in 2010, after a tetchy relationship with the previous music director, Kent Nagano. Bachler had all but married himself to Petrenko’s remaining in Munich, after it was clear that Petrenko would become the designated head honcho of the Berlin Philharmonic. Keeping Petrenko was thought to be a prerequisite for him renewing his contract.prem

Said Minister Spaenle: “Under Nikolaus Bachler and Kirill Petrenko, Bavarian State Opera has experienced artistic highpoints which were feted worldwide by the public and the critics as some of opera’s greatest moments. We are proud to have succeeded in keeping both of them in Munich and look forward to the coming seasons.”

This ends the speculation whether Petrenko, who free-lanced for many years before taking a fix position, would or could hold two posts at the same time. There was never any question that the Munich Opera would do anything to keep its music director. The audiences reveres the lithe, little self-effacing maestro. The orchestra adores him with players suggesting that they hadn’t been conducted as well since working with Carlos Kleiber: Perhaps the highest praise there is for a conductor – and indeed, their performances together are little short of inspired. But even though he might not be noted for community trench-work or being keen on any extra-curricular activities, Petrenko takes his musical commitments rather more serious than the cliché of the jet-setting, check-collecting modern maestro. This takes a strain that the fragile Petrenko, who has dealt with health issues in the past, wasn’t necessarily deemed willing to put upon his shoulders.

Still, it will more as a relief for every music-loving person in or near the Bavarian capital, than a surprise. Holding two major jobs has been the standard for conductors in the last few decades, and often these two commitments were spread left and right of the Atlantic. Petrenko’s jobs involve no jet lag and require just a quick flight from one city to another. And Petrenko professedly returned the orchestra’s warm feelings towards him, fully appreciative of the fact that he reached artistic heights with them, that he couldn’t replicate even at, say, the Bayreuth Fesitval.

To accommodate his duties in Berlin, Petrenko will be the official guest conductor of the Munich Opera for the final season of his contract, in 2020/21. The Berlin Philharmonic, meanwhile, is cooperative at the beginning of his tenure there. As the Berlin Philharmonic, which sent out a press release just hours before the State Opera announced the contract renewal, said: “with respect to his obligations with Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Kirill Petrenko will initially take on only a limited number of concerts during his first season as chief conductor in Berlin.” In the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 seasons, Kirill Petrenko will appear as a guest conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic. During the 2018/19 season, he will take them on tour and conduct several concert programs. A press conference with Kirill Petrenko in Berlin is announced and will take place within the next few days.

Petrenko took up his duties in Munich in autumn 2013 with a new production of Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and has since then conducted the premieres of new productions of La clemenza di Tito, Die Soldaten, Lucia di Lammermoor and Lulu.