Second chance for music lovers to see Berlin Philharmonic

Free tickets will be made available for the dress rehearsal of the Berlin Philharmonic concert in Paphos on April 30, the Pafos2017 organisers told the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday.

The details will be finalised over Easter and will be announced soon after, marketing and communication officer Anastasia Anastasiou said.

This is a second chance for classical music lovers who failed to buy tickets for the May 1 concert by one of Europe’s greatest orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic. Its performance is part of the town’s role as European Capital of Culture.

A total of 1,500 tickets for the concert were available from December 2016 but were sold out by the beginning of March. Tickets cost €50 for standard seats, €30 for side seats and €70 for VIP seats.

The concert will take place at Paphos’ Castle Square and is going to be broadcast to many European and Asian countries by German state TV station ARD. It will also be streamed online around the world.

The Berlin Philharmonic has organised a concert on May 1 every year since 1991 to mark the date it was established in 1882.

This year, acclaimed conductor Mariss Jansons, who was the artistic director of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years, will conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in Paphos.

The Berlin Philharmonic is one of Europe’s greatest orchestras, with hundreds of concerts, performances and recordings all over the world. Legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan was for many years its artistic director.

The progamme on May 1 includes works by Carl Maria von Weber and Antonín Dvořák. The principal clarinettist of the Berlin Philharmonic Andreas Ottensamer will perform during the concert.

The event is organised with the support of the German Embassy and the Cyprus Tourism Organisation and the main sponsor is the Bank of Cyprus.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.