Simone Young talks to Jo Litson about her love of Wagner, the differences between conducting at Bayreuth and in concert at the Sydney Opera House, and why Richard Strauss’s Salome is the perfect opera to program after the conclusion of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s triumphant Ring Cycle.

Simone Young. Photo © Wolter Peeters for Nine/ Fairfax Media Publications

Simone Young can remember exactly when Wagner first entered her life and changed it forever.

“I was about 14,” she says. “I used to travel from [my] school on Sydney’s North Shore to the Conservatorium once a week, because I was studying music theory at a more advanced level. One afternoon, our teacher put an LP on the turntable. He didn’t say very much. He just...