Simone strikes Rheingold!
QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane, Saturday August 25

Das Rheingold was composed by Richard Wagner as a Vorabend to the Ring Tetralogy, a taste of the action to come in his bigger-than-anything operatic epic of gods and men. And at QPAC the Hamburg Philharmonic and soloists of the Hamburg State Opera provided a taste of that taste – a concert performance of Das Rheingold, without the sets and movement Wagner would have regarded as essential to what he dubbed a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art.

I can think of many who would pay not to sit through two and a half hours of concertised Wagner without interval, so it’s a testament to the powers of those involved – and to Wagner’s music – that this concert was at no moment anything less than gripping. Australian conductor Simone Young, who is musical director of the Hamburg Phil and Opera, gave a performance remarkable for its intensity and sheer stamina.

Throughout the 2.5 hours, Young drove the orchestra through the most hazardous bends of the score with the ease of a Wagner veteran, her energy and attention to detail never flagging. Despite the high calibre of the singers, the orchestra was the true star here, delivering climaxes built as magnificently as Wotan’s...