It is a safe bet that not many people sitting in the audience for the first of two sold-out performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder had seen this massive work played live – including the person wielding the baton, Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor Simone Young.

But there could not have been a better candidate for its fourth ever staging in this country, and the orchestra’s first. And “staging” is the appropriate word with a few rows of the Concert Hall’s stalls sacrificed for the extended apron needed to accommodate the more than 400 musicians drawn from two orchestras and three choirs, each from a different state, alongside a top-notch cast of six soloists.

Young called on all her experience as one of the world’s most respected Wagnerians to direct traffic for the one hour and 50 minutes of Schoenberg’s lavish farewell to tonality. Composed over nearly a decade and premiered in 1913, the song cycle tells the tale of big trouble in Denmark when medieval king Waldemar (Simon O’Neill) falls in love with the beautiful Tove (Ricarda Merbeth) and sets her up in the seaside castle of Gurre.