Tonight the time has come: Christian Thielemann celebrates his inauguration as general music director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden together with the Staatskapelle Berlin. The inaugural concert will take place in the State Opera Unter den Linden, tomorrow the same program will be heard again in the Philharmonie. There will be works of high and late romanticism – including Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s 2nd Piano Concerto and Arnold Schönberg’s opulent tone poem “Pelleas and Melisande” as well as a contemporary piece by the young Canadian composer Samy Moussa. “Elysium” is the name of the work by the Berlin-based composer: a colorful orchestral piece that premiered in 2021 at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, conducted by Christian Thielemann.
For this evening’s concert, Thielmann is also bringing a musical friend onto the stage: the pianists Igor Levit and Christian Thielemann share an artistic and personal friendship. Just a few days ago a new Brahms album was released in which they interpret Johannes Brahms’ two piano concertos together with the Vienna Philharmonic. There are also solo piano works by Brahms and Thielemann even sat down at the keys alongside Levit for a four-hand waltz.
