柏林爱乐乐团终于觅得首席指挥

Berlin Philharmonic Selects Kirill Petrenko to Succeed Simon Rattle
柏林爱乐乐团终于觅得首席指挥

When the Berlin Philharmonic announced on Monday that its next chief conductor would be Kirill Petrenko, the Russian-born music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the organization was awarding one of the most prestigious posts in classical music to a widely respected artist who has largely shunned the spotlight courted by some of his peers.

周一，柏林爱乐乐团(Berlin Philharmonic)宣布了下任首席指挥将由生于俄罗斯的慕尼黑巴伐利亚国家歌剧院(Bavarian State Opera)音乐总监基利尔・佩钦科(Kirill Petrenko)担任。这意味着柏林爱乐乐团将古典乐坛最负盛名的头衔授予了一位广受尊崇却为人低调的艺术家。与一直渴望曝光的同辈不同，佩钦科一直极力避免出现在聚光灯下。

Case in point: Mr. Petrenko, 43, is in the midst of rehearsals at the Bayreuth Festival and so did not attend the hastily arranged news conference in Berlin, where his appointment was announced a day after the musicians of the Philharmonic, a self-governing orchestra, met in secret near their concert hall. There they elected him the latest in a line of distinguished leaders that has included Hans von Bülow, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado and the current conductor, Simon Rattle.

比如：宣布下任首席指挥人选当日，佩钦科正忙于拜罗伊特音乐节(Bayreuth Festival)的彩排，因此缺席了这场在柏林匆忙召开的新闻发布会。发布会前一天，自主管理的管弦乐团――柏林爱乐的音乐人们秘密聚集在音乐厅附近，选出佩钦科，将他排入包括汉斯・冯・彪罗(Hans von Bülow)、威廉・福特伦格勒(Wilhelm Furtwängler)、赫伯特・冯・卡拉扬(Herbert von Karajan)、克劳迪奥・阿巴多(Claudio Abbado)及现任指挥西蒙・拉特尔(Simon Rattle)等卓越指挥家名单末端。

It was not the musicians’ first attempt to choose a successor to Mr. Rattle, who will leave the post in 2018: At a marathon 11-hour meeting in May, the musicians cast several ballots but failed to agree on a candidate, raising questions about the role of modern conductors, and what course the Berlin Philharmonic intends to chart in the 21st century.

音乐人们不止一次地想给2018年离职的拉特尔找个接班人：五月，在经历了一场长达11小时的马拉松会议后，他们进行了几轮投票，但都没能达成一致，同时他们对现代指挥家的作用和柏林爱乐在21世纪的方向产生了质疑。

In choosing Mr. Petrenko, who is best known as an opera conductor, the Philharmonic’s players bypassed a number of more famous maestros and opted for a quiet, diligent musician who has won the admiration of orchestras, critics and audiences. In some ways he is the opposite of the jet-setters who have increasingly become the norm in the field, arranging his schedule in recent years to devote more of his time to fewer ensembles.

以歌剧指挥闻名的佩钦科的当选，意味着乐团演奏家们放弃了一系列更著名的艺术大家，而选择了这样一位沉稳勤恳、受到管弦乐队、评论家和观众钦佩的音乐人。某种程度上来说，与乐坛中常见的满世界奔波的音乐人正好相反，佩钦科喜欢把较多的时间集中投入到较少的演出中。

“The orchestra and the score itself are always the focus ― not his own person,” Peter Riegelbauer, one of the musicians on the orchestra’s board, said at the news conference. But he added, “He is always able to transform a concert hall with his unique charisma.”

“他永远把乐队和乐谱放在第一位――而不是他本人，”柏林爱乐乐团音乐家之一彼得・里格尔鲍尔(Peter Riegelbauer)在发布会上称。但他同时补充道，“佩钦科总能用自己的个人魅力改变音乐厅。”

There are risks to the appointment. Few couples would marry after only three dates, no matter how great, and Mr. Petrenko has conducted the Philharmonic only three times. In December he withdrew on short notice because of shoulder pain from a fourth engagement to conduct Mahler’s Sixth Symphony.

当然，这一任命也存在一定风险。正像情侣之间的约会再美妙，也不大可能约会三次就结婚一样，佩钦科也只指挥了乐团三次而已。他因为肩伤而临时取消了12月与乐团的第四次合作，原定的曲目是马勒第六交响曲(Mahler’s Sixth Symphony)。

That Mahler was to have been his first foray into the standard symphonic literature with the orchestra, a reminder that Mr. Petrenko’s orchestral repertoire is not as wide as that of some other candidates. And his seeming reticence ― he declined to be interviewed on Monday ― could pose a challenge for an international orchestra that valued Mr. Rattle’s ability to talk about its art with audiences and the news media alike.

这次未能进行的合作本是佩钦科首次尝试指挥爱乐乐团演奏一首标准意义上的交响乐作品，可以说佩钦科管弦乐的作品很难和其他部分候选人匹敌。而他的沉默――周一他曾拒绝接受采访――也是一个国际乐团要面对的挑战，爱乐乐团曾十分重视拉特尔向观众和新媒体一类平台谈论艺术的能力。

But Mr. Petrenko has won fans wherever he has conducted, and has become known for his exacting standards. His work at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich has been praised, and officials there said on Monday that they still hoped to extend his contract beyond 2018. (The Berlin orchestra declined to give Mr. Petrenko’s official start date, suggesting that details of the new engagement had yet to be negotiated.)

但佩钦科无论到哪儿演出都能吸纳新的粉丝，并以他特有的严厉标准而闻名。他在慕尼黑的巴伐利亚国家歌剧院的工作也饱受赞誉。官方周一称希望能将他的合约延长到2018年后。（柏林爱乐乐团还未给出佩钦科的正式就职日期，表明雇佣的一些细节还有待商榷。）

He received acclaim for his earlier run as music director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, as well as engagements with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and other ensembles. In 2012 he led a production of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina” at the Metropolitan Opera that was a highlight of the season. And in 2013, his conducting of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle at Bayreuth was applauded, even if the production was not.

佩钦科早年曾在柏林喜歌剧院(Komische Oper)担任音乐总监，并曾与芝加哥交响乐团(Chicago Symphony Orchestra)、克利夫兰管弦乐团(Cleveland Orchestra)等其他乐团有过合作，都受到盛赞。2012年在大都会歌剧院(Metropolitan Opera)，他指挥演奏的穆索尔斯基(Mussorgsky)名曲“霍万斯基之乱(Khovanshchina)”成为当季最佳。2013年拜罗伊特音乐节，他指挥演奏的华格纳(Wagner)“指环(Ring)”系列也掌声不断，尽管原作不属上乘。

Mr. Petrenko was born in Omsk in Siberia and immigrated at the age of 18 with his family to Austria, where his father, a violinist, got a post with a provincial orchestra. In a statement, Mr. Petrenko admitted to a certain disbelief at being selected by the Berlin Philharmonic.

佩钦科出生于西伯利亚(Siberia)鄂木斯克(Omsk)。18岁那年，由于身为小提琴家的父亲在奥地利(Austria)的地方管弦乐团谋了份差事，他们举家移民至奥地利。在一次声明中，佩钦科承认并未料到会被柏林爱乐选中。

“Words cannot express my feelings ― everything from euphoria and great joy to awe and disbelief,” he said. “I am aware of the responsibility and high expectations of me, and I will do everything in my power to be a worthy conductor of this outstanding orchestra.”

“我现在的感受难以用语言形容――从幸福兴奋到敬畏和难以置信的一切感受都在我心中翻腾，”他说。“我深知自己肩头的重任和他人的高度期盼。我会尽一切努力，对得起这一杰出乐团的指挥头衔。”

The orchestra was said to have weighed numerous candidates, including the German conductor Christian Thielemann, a polarizing figure with fans and detractors among the players; Andris Nelsons; and Riccardo Chailly. A number of other top candidates seemed to withdraw from consideration in the weeks before the first vote, including Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Barenboim and Mariss Jansons.

柏林爱乐表示比较了多位候选人，包括德国指挥家克里斯蒂安・蒂勒曼(Christian Thielemann)，一个同时受到观众拥护和乐手抨击的极端例子，安德里斯・尼尔森斯(Andris Nelsons)，和里卡多・夏伊(Riccardo Chailly)。还有很多顶级候选人在第一轮投票前就被淘汰了，包括古斯塔沃・杜达美(Gustavo Dudamel)、丹尼尔・巴伦博伊姆(Daniel Barenboim)和马里斯・扬颂斯(Mariss Jansons)。

Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, called Mr. Petrenko an “inspired choice,” and said that he hoped the new position might make a return engagement at the Met more likely for Mr. Petrenko. He also said he considered the conductor a noteworthy choice for Berlin, an orchestra with complicated dynamics that can seem to require deft political leadership. “It’s interesting that they picked somebody who is clearly not interested in politics,” he said.

大都会歌剧院总经理彼得・盖尔布(Peter Gelb)称佩钦科是“富于灵感的选择”，并表示希望他的上任能增加他在大都会再次演出的可能性。他同时评价佩钦科是柏林爱乐的重要选择，一个无比复杂的管弦乐团本来似乎需要一个富于心计的政治领袖。“他们选了一个显然对政治毫无兴趣的人来做指挥，很有意思，”他说。

Sarah Willis, a horn player in the Philharmonic, said that the musicians were quickly drawn to Mr. Petrenko after he made his debut in 2006 conducting works by Bartok and Rachmaninoff. When she interviewed him for one of the orchestra’s Digital Concert Hall streaming service programs in 2009, she told him as much. “It’s usually a question for the orchestra: ‘Hmm, we’ll see if this new conductor will be asked back,’ ” she told him. “But by the end of the week we were saying, ‘When can he come back?’ because we enjoyed it so much.”

柏林爱乐小号手萨拉・威利斯(Sarah Willis)称，2006年，佩钦科凭借指挥巴托克和拉克玛尼诺夫的作品首次登台后，乐手们就开始留意他。2009年，她面试佩钦科参加乐队电子音乐厅串流节目时，也把这些告诉了他。“通常来说乐队的问题都是：‘嗯，我们会考虑要不要再请这个指挥来合作，’”她告诉佩钦科。“但周末的时候我们都在说‘他什么时候能再来？’大家实在太享受那场演出了。”

In that interview Mr. Petrenko confessed to having been “very shy” in his first rehearsal with the orchestra: “I was thinking: ‘What should I say? Should I ask them to play this one more time? Or better not ask them?’ ” For his second engagement, he said, he decided to “work with this great orchestra as I work with any other orchestra, just in my way.”

那次面试中，佩钦科承认在初次与乐团排练的时候“非常腼腆”：“我一直在考虑：‘我该说什么？我要不要让他们再来一次？还是不说比较好？’”第二次合作的时候，他说他决定“用和其他任何管弦乐团合作的方式来和最好的管弦乐团合作，就用自己的方式。”

Ms. Willis, in a telephone interview, said: “One of my colleagues likened it to playing chamber music. When you play chamber music with someone you notice in the very first seconds, almost, if you’ll be able to play with that person. If they think like you do, if they feel like you do, it just clicks.”

威利斯女士在电话访谈中说：“我的一个同事把这比作演奏室内乐。当你和你一开始就注意到的人演奏室内乐时，差不多你就能和那个人合拍地合作。如果他们和你想法一样，他们就会和你感受一致，这就是一拍即合。”