UPDATE FEATURE In Berlin, Petrenko’s all- women Puccini opera hailed as a ‘triumph’

The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko has once again made his mark on the city's music scene winning over both the audience and critics with a performance of Puccini's little-known, all-female opera, "Suor Angelica." Berlin (dpa) - The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko selected a rarely performed opera set in late 17th-century Italy for his first opera project with the orchestra's education programme. More than 100 years after Giacomo Puccini's "Suor Angelica" was first performed, the opera remains remarkably relevant to modern times. Saturday night's debut performance was greeted with a warm reception from both critics and the audience alike. "My god, it was all great and beautiful," wrote the German weekly Der Freitag. In addition to touching on the role of women in society, the opera also high- lights the suffering caused by expulsion, separation and the flight from war and natural catastrophes such as global warming. "Basically, the first question for me was: How can I put this opera in the here and now? What does it have to do with us now?" said Nicola Huempel, who directed Saturday's staging of the opera in the Berliner Philharmonie concert house. Composed in 1917, "Suor Angelica" was one of three one-act operas written by Puccini and was first performed in December 1918, just six years before his death at the age of 65. In conversation with the Philharmonie's Digital Concert Hall, an online platform which is also showing the "Suor Angelica" performance free of charge in a livestream, Petrenko described the opera as "very realistic." It tells the story of a young woman sent to a convent seven years earlier by her family as punishment for having an illegitimate child. Heroines dominate some of Puccini's most famous operas, such as "La Boheme," "Madame Butterfly," "Tosca" and "Turandot." But in "Suor Angelica," the great Italian opera composer has written a piece in which women make up the entire cast, which Huempel, a German theatre and opera director, said was unusual for an opera. Huempel sees similarities between this story of a mother separated from her illegitimate child, and the plight of peo- ple struggling to exert their sense of dignity in modern-day strife. "Worldwide, mothers are separated from their children because of fleeing violence or war," said Huempel, who also oversaw the opera's costumes. "We have moved the location of the opera [from the setting of a convent] to a spiritual place today where women meet to process traumas, do meditation exercises or simply optimize their lives," she said. The opera's performance formed part of the Berlin Philharmonic's education programme, which aims to make the orche- stra's work and its music as accessible to as many people as possible. The "Suor Angelica" team was drawn from 14 nations. Russian-born Petrenko, who conducted the performance with his customary verve - once described by a philharmonic orchestra member as like the energy of a kung-fu master - said the opera was "something unique." It was performed by young singers from Berlin music schools as well as the Choir of the Vocal Heroes Choral Programme and in cooperation with the Berlin music theatre company Nico and the Navigators. The international cast of singers and musicians performing the opera are lar- gely under 30 - with some considerably younger. The leading Swedish soprano, Katarina Dalayman, aged 57, plays the only adult role in the opera. However, a large part of the evening belonged to the American soprano Ann Toomey, who sang the role of Angelica. "Petrenko's 'Suor Angelica' is painfully impacting - striving for one's dignity in this toxic world! What a beautiful and aching triumph!" tweeted the American composer and choral conductor Emerson Eads. In his Digital Concert conversation, Petrenko said he thought the youthful age of the singers helped to produce "a very authentic" sound which created the sense of young nuns as lost souls in a convent. He also paid tribute to the opera's orche- stra, which included young musicians from the Karajan Academy. It was founded 40 years ago by the Berlin Philharmonic's legendary chief conductor Herbert von Karajan for orchestra members to tutor young musicians. "These young musicians take it all in," said Petrenko, who launched his first season as Berlin Philharmonic chief conductor in August last year. They played, he said, "with fire in their eyes."

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