Philharmonie Berlin, season 2025/2026
“NEW YEAR’S EVE CONCERT”
Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor Kirill­ Petrenko 
Tenor Benjamin Bernheim
Piotr Tchaikovsky: “Eugene Onegin”, op. 24: Polonaise, Introduction and “Kuda, kuda vy udalilis”, Lensky’s Aria from Act 2; Gabriel Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande, orchestral suite, op. 80: 3rd Movement Sicilienne; Charles Gounod: Roméo et Juliette: “L’amour!”, Cavatina of Romeo from Act 2; Piotr Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture after Shakespeare; Jules Massenet: Werther: Prelude to Act 1, “Pourquoi me réveiller”, Aria of Werther from Act 3; Georges Bizet: L’Arlésienne: Suite No. 2 for orchestra: No. 4 Farandole,Carmen: “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée”, Aria of Don José from Act 2; Emmanuel Chabrier: España, Rhapsody for orchestra; George Gershwin: Cuban Overture
Berlin, 31 December 2025
A relatively new star in the tenor firmament: Benjamin Bernheim, who is given ample opportunity to showcase arias from his strongly Francophone repertoire in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s traditional New Year’s Eve concert with chief conductor Kirill Petrenko. The programme is dominated by the idiom of the singer and the conductor, which does not mean that the orchestra cannot impressively master George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, which concludes the concert, with lots of percussion instruments, so that listeners can easily dream themselves away to a Cuban rumba night in Havana, far away from the wet, cold and grey Berlin winter weather. But first things first: the conductor opens the concert with the lively Polonaise from Piotr Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, the most popular Russian opera in the West. From the very first note, it is clear that we are dealing with a world-class orchestra that can also play popular classical music for a New Year’s Eve concert in an exemplary manner, with precision and perfection! In the well-known third movement from Gabriel Fauré’s orchestral suite Pelléas et Mélisande, the short Sicilienne, the flute solo and strings shine equally. Petrenko is back in his Russian element for the longest piece of the evening, Piotr Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, and conducts the Philharmoniker so masterfully, both in the demanding rhythmic passages and the quiet, elegiac passages, that one feels transported to 19th-century St Petersburg, especially in summer. The prelude to Jules Massenet’s opera of the same name exudes French flair paired with Werther’s German melancholy. In the popular Farandole from George Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite, the orchestra conjures up the Mediterranean sun in the fast Provençal folk dance, while Emmanuel Chabrier’s España breathes Iberian melos. Petrenko and the Philharmoniker create excellent miniatures with Polonaise, Werther Prelude and Farandole, which transition seamlessly into the arias, sung by Benjamin Bernheim in a highly cultivated and impeccable manner with beautiful legato and very good breathing technique: Romeo’s rapturous cavatina ‘L’amour! L’amour!’ from Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, Werther’s ‘Pourquoi me réveiller’, which probably best reflects the current state of his spinto tenor, and José’s flower aria ‘La fleur que tu m’avais jetée’ from Bizet’s Carmen with a brilliant final head voice B. His somewhat white French tenor voice goes perfectly with his idiom and also the winter landscape of Lensky’s ‘Kuda, kuda vy udalilis’’, whereby the native-speaking conductor knows exactly what the singer is singing about. Literally every child in Russia knows this aria, and its lyrics should be well rehearsed before performing it in front of an international audience, both at the Philharmonie Berlin and worldwide, where the French-German cultural channel arte broadcast the concert on a delayed basis on radio, television and in cinemas. This fact is probably also due to the consistently popular programme, crowned by Bernheim’s E lucevan le stelle from Puccini’s Tosca and the indestructible Carmen prelude. If just one or two of the younger people in the audience begin to take an interest in what they have heard, and if perhaps one in a thousand of them decides to learn an instrument, then a great deal will have been achieved! Photo Stephan Rabold