“Wagner has wonderful moments and dreadful quarters of an hour,” quipped Puccini. While this is debatable, it is true that any discussion of The Ring Cycle involves the work’s massive 15-hour duration.

Productions of this Herculean epic – brimming with gods, dwarves, dragons and Valkyries – demand stamina from the vocal and instrumental forces, and even the most ardent of opera lovers in the audience.

Artistic Director David Kram’s adaptation reimagines Wagner’s magnum opus while cutting it back to a mere 90 minutes. Others have made edits as an expression of artistic mutiny; David Bedford’s version lasts one minute, Hal Freeman’s online take is reduced to four minutes, and David Ocker’s to seven.

But Kram’s intention is to “make Wagner accessible to a wider audience.” This concert presented an unfinished AI cinematic illustration by two Swinburne University lecturers, Dr Jack Parry and James Berrett. It was firmly introduced as a work in progress.

Marketing image for More Than Opera’s BrunnhAilde

More Than Opera’s innovative compression doesn’t stray too far from Wagner’s ideology, for the composer believed in