Berlin welcomes its first chief conductor: Joana Mallwitz triumphs with the Konzerthausorchester with the first symphonies by Weill, Prokofiev and Mahler.
At the end of the concert, the final movement of Mahler’s first symphony, invoked by the conductor with wild gestures, crashes brutally into the hall of the Berlin Konzerthaus and ends, between dream visions, in catastrophe. But as a triumph. Thunderous applause for Joana Mallwitz, an artist who was eagerly awaited in Berlin and who is now fulfilling all expectations. With an elastic step, smiling, she enters the podium. With nervousness? She hardly seems impressed by the importance of the inaugural concert. Not that a special moment has been reached here in Berlin’s bustling classical music scene: None of the three opera and four concert orchestras in the capital have wanted to open the door to a woman as chief conductor.