Berlin Philharmonic finally chooses: Petrenko

Kirill Petrenko? Didn't the Berlin Philharmonic announcement Monday mean Vassily Petrenko?

No, Europe's great orchestra has elected the lesser-known Petrenko to succeed Simon Rattle in 2018 - though he barely made the dark-horse lists in the months of heated speculation that often centered on the acclaimed, Dresden-based Christian Thielemann.

Petrenko - no relation to the better-known Vassily (who leads orchestras in Liverpool and Oslo) - was named music director of the Bavarian State Opera in 2010 after years at the humbler Komische Oper Berlin. Now 43, he conducted a new production of Wagner's Ring at Bayreuth in 2013 and appeared regularly at the Metropolitan Opera over the last 12 years, which included a memorable Khovanshchina in 2012.

With the trendsetting Berliners, one has to ask what this appointment means. Major orchestras around the world are making meteoric careers go faster by taking chances on such youngish talents as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, 40, in Philadelphia and Andris Nelsons, 36, in Boston. But in what look like riskier bids for new blood, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra has hired the barely seasoned Gustavo Gimeno, and Petrenko was named after only three Berlin Philharmonic appearances.

The Berlin debate, which often had the air of a papal election, was said to focus on whether to move backward or forward. Rattle pushed the philharmonic in new directions with repertoire and outreach, though his 16-year tenure is considered only a qualified success. Thielemann would have represented a comfortable retreat into standard Germanic repertoire.

Petrenko is Berlin's first Jewish chief conductor (significant, though it shouldn't be) and the first from Russia (not significant, since much of his training is Central European). His big successes have been with pieces that must be coaxed into viability. If he can do well with Scriabin, might Beethoven be a breeze?

His Met Khovanshchina alone inspires great confidence. Though the opera was left unfinished, under Petrenko it never felt that way, with fresh, immediate characterization given to every phrase, and an overall forward thrust that made it the epic the composer hoped it would be - a feat of both inspiration and strategy.