★★★★☆ Gaffigan and Gerstein prove once again that the devil gets the best tunes.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
August 14, 2015

There was more than a whiff of brimstone in the air for this well-chosen programme of crowd-pleasers put across with devilish dash by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under American maestro James Gaffigan. The 36-year-old New Yorker is a rising star on world concert stages and with his ‘now he’s got a baton, now he hasn’t’ muscular conducting style he’s certainly highly watchable, seemingly inviting the music to take demonic possession of his modest frame.

Shakespeare’s witches opened proceedings in Verdi’s high-octane ballet from the Paris revision of his opera Macbeth. “You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so,” says Banquo of these snaggle-toothed hags, and if the idea of them cutting a pas de trois to inflame the passions of the infamous Jockey Club seems a bit kinky, it’s all great fun musically. It’s always nice to hear this kind of thing played by larger forces than you’d find in the average opera pit and Gaffigan and the SSO gave it a cracking workout, relishing its occasional crudities from opening...