Orchestre de Paris – European tour
“Pictures at an Exhibition in Maurice Ravel’s brilliant orchestration has rarely been heard played with such verve and forward-looking power … The thunderous witch’s ride “The Hut of Baba Yaga” led in a stringent build-up of tension into the fast-paced finale “The Great Gate of Kiev”, which Mäkelä dramaturgically cleverly designed by taking back the four-fold recurring main theme on its third appearance in order to give the ending an even more grandiose effect.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Johannes Liebig, 11 March 2025
“Mäkelä unfolded a sound image of analytical penetration (in Petrushka), sharply drawn contours and a barely restrained wildness. The rhythmic shifts that charge Stravinsky’s score with unsteady energy were worked out with unprecedented clarity. The Orchestre de Paris showed off an orchestral virtuosity that was captivating in its precision and power.”
Onlinemerker, Dirk Schauß, 8 March 2025
“After four years as music director, Mäkelä has shaped the ensemble into an organism that can seemingly master anything under his direction. His Sacre was not staged as a virtuoso showpiece, but as living music in which an admirable sound culture was maintained even in the most violent rhythmic eruptions. The delicate, intimate moments of the work received just as much attention as the stirring and grippingly staged sound explosions. It was particularly impressive how the musicians not only performed the eruptive passages with decisive precision, but also shaped the lyrical, almost mystical sections with great sensitivity.”
General Anzeiger Bonn, Bernard Hartmann, 8 March 2025
“Things get really exciting when the orchestra opens Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, a piece the Parisians also recorded with Mäkelä. He has a great eye for the colourful, for the playful and for contrast: the orchestra manages to make the intended sound unintentional. It is a performance full of little ‘oh, was this in the score?’ moments. The bi-orchestral quality, the almost minimal-like passages: the piece sounds astonishingly fresh for a composition from 1911.”
de Volkskrant, Merlin Kerkhof , 5 March 2025
“The highlight of the evening is the captivating performance of the tragic heroic story Petrushka by Igor Stravinsky, which cannot be surpassed in precision and energy. The abrupt, expressive changes in mood are woven together like a collage – the interplay of the huge orchestral apparatus, which merges here into a magnificently coordinated sound body, is spot on.”
Klassik.com, Ursula Decker-Bönniger, 2 March 2025
“The orchestra shows exquisite refinement in Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye, the conductor carefully modulating each nuance and attentively monitoring the balances. Many passages, including the conclusion of the “Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant” or the rising tension of the “Jardin féerique”, leave an imperishable memory.”
Concertonet.com, Laurent Barthel, 1 March 2025
“Sound magic alert in the Elbphilharmonie, again … But the highlight is Mussorgsky’s hit Pictures at an Exhibition … Mäkelä and the orchestra model the characters that Mussorgsky painted from the paintings and into the music with incredible vividness. The nostalgic mood in ‘The Old Castle’, the ‘Ballet of the Chicks’ set to music with lively flute staccatos, and the majestic grandeur of the ‘Heroes’ Gate’ at the very end, where Mäkelä’s gestures reach far and wide to stage a finale of overwhelming splendour.”
Hamburger Abendblatt, 27 February 2025
“Of Stravinsky’s trilogy of early Ballets Russes masterpieces, Petrushka is widely acknowledged as the hardest to conduct, yet Mäkelä’s precision and strong grip on the score resulted in a terrific account full of rhythmic snap … The ballet ended with a theatrical flourish, the tambourine dropped, signifying Petrushka’s death, before spectral strings and a lacerating trumpet as the puppet angrily waves his fists. One could envisage the action, another vivid picture in this most visual of concerts.”
Bachtrack.com, Mark Pullinger, 24 February 2025
“The fact that Mäkelä’s interpretative interest is less in profound precision work and that he prefers to delight in cutting rhythmic punchlines was also made clear by the middle section of this celebrated evening: Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka in the version from 1947 … It only took a few gestures from the conductor to convey his intentions to the musicians. However, the narrative and, above all, the tragedy that is hidden in this music, even if it only fully erupts at the end, remained underexposed. A shortcoming that cannot be glossed over by virtuoso furore or exuberant enthusiasm.”
Die Presse, Walter Dobner, 25 February 2025
” Anyone who is so successful at such a young age and has been hyped up by the media soon faces criticism at a high level. That would have been difficult even for bean counters on Saturday evening in the Golden Hall, because the French-Russian program was interpreted by the Orchestre de Paris so finely, so precisely, so colorfully that the standing ovations in the Musikverein were not pro forma, but a logical consequence … The absolute precision of the strings: sharpness with a fine sound at the same time. Absolutely admirable.“
Die Presse, Jens F. Laurson 24 February 2025
” The Sacre was similarly captivating on Saturday … the scandalous ballet from 1913 could hardly be performed with more bite and precision. Mäkelä unlocks the archaic force of this music by sharpening its accents with razor-sharp precision; the orchestra, in turn, shines with impressionistic elegance, despite all the pleasure it takes in the joy.”
Der Standard, Christoph Irrgeher, 25 February 2025
“Behind his (Mäkelä’s) concise, sparingly objective signalling, you can sense clever sound dramaturgy, balance and logic. His renditions of Maurice Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s version, Claude Debussy’s Trois nocturnes (with the ladies of the Singverein) or Igor Stravinsky’s ballets Sacre du printemps & Petrushka, which he recently recorded in Paris, were brilliant. The mix of luminosity, tingling tension and effects is thrilling. And the way he savours French sound and elegance with the velvety strings and brilliant winds – as in Ravel – leaves nothing to be desired.”
Kronenzeitung, Karl-Heinz Roschitz, 25 February 2025
TOUR VENUES AND PROGRAMMES
FRANKFURT ALTE OPER
7 March
Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
KÖLN PHILHARMONIE
6 March
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
AMSTERDAM CONCERTBEBOUW
4 March
Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
BRUSSELS BOZAR
3 March
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
ESSEN PHILHARMONIE
1 March
Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
BADEN BADEN FESTSPIELHAUS
28 February
Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
HAMBURG ELBPHILHARMONIE
26 February
Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Igor Stravinsky:Petrouchka
Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
25 February
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin
Claude Debussy: Nocturnes
Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
VIENNA MUSIKVEREIN
23 February
Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Igor Stravinsky:Petrouchka
Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
22 February
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin
Claude Debussy: Nocturnes
Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
