Russian performers can take stage at Proms if they oppose Putin
With concerts free of Covid restrictions at long last, Ivan Hewett looks ahead to the highlights of this year’s extravaganza
THE BBC is to allow Russian musicians to appear at the Proms, provided they have publicly or privately voiced opposition to the invasion of Ukraine.
Organisers said they had rejected the idea of a Wimbledon-style ban on Russians, but stressed that there was “no place” for supporters of Vladimir Putin.
Instead, the event will nail its colours to the mast by hosting the newly formed Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, for which the Ukrainian government is granting a special exemption to males of fighting age to travel to London.
Last Night of the Proms has become a political battleground, with anti-brexit campaigners handing out EU flags.
This year, the event is expected to be a sea of blue and yellow, with attendees showing their support for Ukraine.
Speaking at the launch of this summer’s programme, David Pickard, director of the BBC Proms, was asked if organisers had “done a Wimbledon” and imposed a ban on Russians.
He replied: “No, we haven’t. Of course, we’ve thought about that very carefully and we do have Russian artists coming this summer.
“Many of them have spoken out very openly against the regime. We have had private conversations with others and I’m confident there is nobody there who is a supporter of the regime. And I think if there were somebody that were to express those views, to be putting it bluntly, there would be no place for them at the Proms.”
Star names include the Russian-born Kirill Petrenko, the chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, whose father is Ukrainian.
He has publicly denounced the war, saying: “Putin’s insidious attack on Ukraine, which violates international law, is a knife in the back of the entire peaceful world.
“It is also an attack on the arts which, as we know, unite across all borders.”
A performance of Puccini’s Il tabarro will feature tenor Ivan Gyngazov, a rising star of Russian opera.
Vasily Petrenko will take part in the Proms as music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has previously said: “Being an international artist with family living in both Russia and Ukraine, I am shocked by the conflict and appalled at the destruction of innocent lives. Peace must be restored as soon as possible.”
The Proms will return after two years out, owing to coronavirus restrictions, to a full eight-week season from July 15, with 84 concerts featuring more than 3,000 musicians.
The Proms are back – and I mean properly back, in swaggering style. The Covid restrictions are gone at last, so the Proms can do what it has always done best: the big blockbuster pieces such as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Mahler’s Symphony No 2. And with Covid fears finally waning it’s a fair bet audiences will be filling the hall to capacity.
But it’s more than a joyous return to old traditions. The season truly lives up to the promise of the Proms’ founders, to spread “wider still and wider”. There are lunchtime concerts broadcast from every corner of the UK, from Truro to Belfast, big names such as Simon Rattle and András Schiff, plus a focus on bright young talent, a welcome to genres beyond classical, a mouthwatering range of international talent including the Berlin Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestras, and a truly diverse range of composers and performers and orchestras. Here is my pick of the 2022 Proms.
The hottest ticket Prom 62, September 3 Prom 65, September 4
The reclusive conductor Kirill Petrenko will be conducting his own Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and, given the reaction at previous Proms, the two concerts are likely to sell out fast. The second of these features Shostakovich’s 10th symphony and Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, but I really want to hear them play the most puzzling and also most alluringly strange of Mahler’s symphonies, the seventh, in Prom 62.
The emotional rollercoaster
Prom 1, July 15
After two years when the expression of simple human emotion has been stifled, and a wretched “elbow bump” has had to do duty for a hug, we’re all in need of some emotional catharsis. The First Night of the Proms should provide it in spades, with a performance of the most heartsearing, overwhelming big choral blockbuster of them all: Verdi’s Requiem. It boasts a terrific cast, including new British tenor-on-theblock Freddie di Tommaso and young South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, together with the BBC Symphony and Crouch End choruses and the London Symphony Orchestra under the impassioned baton of Sakari Oramo.
The oddity Prom 21, August 1
Slipping a wild card into the pack is one of the oldest Proms traditions. This year it’s a Gaming Prom. Just as the arrival of cinema gave a whole new lease of life to orchestral music, so the need to create exciting, evocative soundtracks for computer games has opened a vast lucrative new field – for those classical composers who are savvy enough to take advantage of it, and ignore the critics who say “it’s not really music”. The Royal Philharmonic’s Prom offers a minihistory of the genre, from 1980s classics to the latest release in the Battlefield franchise.
The must-see maestro
Prom 48, August 23
Again the choice of silver-haired maestri who electrify an audience as well as the players is large, from Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra (Prom 49, August 24) to Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (Prom 69, September 7). Top of the list for me is the 85-year-old Indian-born Zubin Mehta leading the Australian World Orchestra in a programme of Brahms, Debussy and Webern. He’s not been seen at the Proms for a decade, and the chance to see this most naturally gifted conductor should not be missed.
The one that will make your spirit soar Prom 61, September 2
Probably the most hallowed piece in the Proms calendar, Beethoven’s ninth symphony, with its journey from turmoil and struggle to pure joy, is particularly apt for these troubled times. And who better to bring this piece to life than Chineke!, Europe’s first majority-black and ethnically diverse orchestra, led by Chi-chi Nwanoku (pictured, left). Alongside the orchestra will be the newly-formed Chineke! Voices and a terrific all-black cast of soloists.
The one that shows the triumph of art over adversity
Prom number TBC, July 31 Canadian-ukrainian musician Keri-lynn Wilson conducts the newly formed Ukrainian Freedom
Orchestra whose line-up includes Ukrainian musicians who have recently been refugees, as well as nationals who are members of European orchestras and some of the country’s top performers. The military-age male members of orchestras inside the country have been granted an exemption to perform in the new outfit, with the Proms being their second destination (after Warsaw).
The neglected gem Prom 14, July 25
In its mission to educate as well as entertain, the Proms has always featured little-known works. This year, I’d recommend Ethel Smyth’s late Concerto for Violin and Horn. It’s always a shock to discover just how softly romantic this fierce composer could be (she once composed a March of the Women for the Suffragette movement), tempered by an elegiac mood that looks back to the horrors of the First World War.
The one to take the kids to Proms 53 & 54, August 27
If your children are really young, you might want to take them to the Cbeebies Prom: A Journey into the Ocean (Proms 11 & 12, July 23). But if they’re older, the Earth Prom should be just the ticket. It’s a visually and aurally spectacular traversal of the BBC’S Natural History Unit down the ages, from early black-and-white films featuring a startlingly young David Attenborough to the present, with emotive and evocative scores from Hans Zimmer and George Fenton, mingled with music from around the globe as well as sounds of nature.
The royal celebration Prom 10, July 22
Britain’s monarchs have always been great patrons of music, and to celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne, Prom 10 brings together pieces down the centuries which have been inspired by a royal occasion. Some of them you’d expect: Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Parry’s I was Glad and Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No4. Others, such as Judith Weir’s I Love all Beauteous Things, Vaughan Williams’s Silence and Music and the wonderful Courtly Dances from Britten’s opera Gloriana written for the Queen’s coronation in 1952, strike a different, less triumphal note.
The Last Night Prom 72, September 10
After the political mire of 2020 and the rather subdued Last Night of 2021, this year’s had to be something special. There are two star guests, one of whom, the young cellist Sheku Kanneh-mason, will be playing a new concerto specially composed for him by James B Wilson, whose influences range from the arcane modernism of Romanian modernist Horațiu Rădulescu to the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott. Alongside him will be Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, who’s gamely taken on the traditional sea shanties and Rule Britannia as well as arias by Verdi, Mascagni and Wagner. And there’s a nod to the centenary of composer Doreen Carwithen, in the shape of her amusingly titled overture ODTAA (One Damned Thing After Another). Dalia Stasevska conducts.
The Proms run from Friday July 15 to Saturday September 10. Tickets go on sale at 9am on Saturday May 21: 020 7589 8212; bbc.co.uk/proms