Essentials: Stravinsky’s Petrushka by Stravinsky, No (2025/2025), Diriģents Paavo Järvi, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Essentials series introduces you to the masterpieces you will be happy to know, performed by the world-famous Concertgebouw Orchestra and complete with a lively introduction by the incomparable Thomas Vanderveken. At Essentials we welcome a new generation of music lovers, and the concerts typically have a pleasant informal atmosphere. Inventive, lively, colourful and always with an irresistible swing: with Stravinsky’s ballet music, like the irresistible carnival spectacle Petrushka, you don’t need dancers or sets to see the story unfold before you. Petrushka, the Russian version of Punch, falls in love with a ballerina. But she has eyes only for the Moor. Petrushka causes chaos at the carnival and is eventually stabbed. Now Petrushka is dead. Or is he? Who rears his head there? Just as the magician in the story brings his wooden puppets to life, so Stravinsky the musical wizard conjures up images in the mind. The music lets every member of the orchestra shine. Essentials starts at 9 p.m. with an imaginative introduction to the programme (in Dutch).