Waldbühne Berlin
Waldbühne Berlin | Picture: Stephan Rabold

Concert information


Info

Maurice Ravel’s ecstatic, sonorous Boléro under the night sky of Berlin – the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko could hardly have chosen a more atmospheric work to end the season at the Waldbühne. But first, star pianist Yuja Wang will be the soloist in Prokofiev’s sparkling, virtuosic irst Piano Concerto – a work in which the musician can show off her remarkable technical skills and her creative power to best advantage. Ravel’s Suite No. 2, from the shimmering and impressionistic ballet Daphnis et Chloé, also transports the listener to a pastoral idyll from ancient mythology.


Artists

Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill Petrenko conductor
Yuja Wang piano


Programme

Modest Mussorgsky
Night on Bald Mountain (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov)

Sergei Prokofiev
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in D flat major, op. 40

Yuja Wang piano

Interval

Maurice Ravel
Pavane pour une infante défunte (Orchesterfassung)

Maurice Ravel
Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2

Maurice Ravel
Boléro


Additional information

Event information

On-site event management by Concert Concept Veranstaltungs-GmbH. Please note:

The following items are permitted: 

  • Food and drinks for your own use: 1 drink per person in 0.5L ©Tetra Pak or 0.5L PET bottle; any food you bring with you must be in transparent packaging. Food and drink will be available for sale on site as usual. 
  • One picnic bag or rucksack/bag per person, with a maximum size of 40cm x 40cm x 35cm
  • Plastic or wooden cutlery 
  • Small folding umbrellas 
  • Blankets (If you have a ticket close to the stage, we recommend that you bring a blanket, as there will be no chairs in this area). 

The following items are not permitted on site:

  • long umbrellas 
  • bulky, dangerous objects, glass in any form, drink cans
  • Picnic bags and rucksacks/bags larger than 40cm x 40cm x 35 mm

Broadcasts

Sat 22.06.2024: rbb television broadcasts live from 20:15
Sat 22.06.2024: 3Sat broadcasts live from 20:15
Sat 22.06.2024: radio3 (formerly rbbKultur) broadcasts live from 20:15
Fri 28.06.2024: ARD broadcasts from 22:20



Waldbühne

Ticket sales through the Concept Veranstaltungs-GmbH

A mad masterpiece without music
7 Facts about “Boléro”

A sheet of music with the title “Boléro”, with the main theme written in notes underneath
Autograph of the “Boléro” theme | Picture: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When a woman screams “Help, a madman,” during the premiere, and the composer simply turns to the person sitting next to him and says, “She understood it,” then it’s clear: this work must be something special! Here are seven facts about a unique work of musical history: Ravel’s Boléro.


Biografien

Kirill Petrenko

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.

Yuja Wang

“Her combination of technical ease, colouristic range and sheer power has always been remarkable,” the Financial Times wrote about Yuja Wang, “but these days there is an ever-greater depth to her musicianship, drawing you into the world of each composer with compelling immediacy.” Yuja Wang’s international breakthrough came just one year before she had completed her studies with piano legend Gray Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia: in 2007, she stepped in at short notice for the famous Martha Argerich, playing to an enthusiastic audience in Boston. 

Since then, she has won worldwide acclaim for her bravura, technical assurance, and charismatic stage presence. She made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2015 with Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, one of the most challenging pieces in the piano literature. In November 2017, she accompanied the orchestra and Simon Rattle on their tour of Asia, and in 2018 she toured with the orchestra again, this time under the direction of Kirill Petrenko, to equally enthusiastic acclaim. Yuja Wang also regularly gives solo recitals in the music capitals of Asia, Europe and North America. “Listening to her is to re-examine your ideas about how well one can play the piano in the first place,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. Next Saturday, Yuja Wang can be heard for the first time at the Waldbühne with the Berliner Philharmoniker.