The concert title Spellbound is an apt choice when it comes to the music of Richards Wagner and Strauss, and the opening group of orchestral songs by Strauss in this generous concert were given an intoxicating performance by soprano Nicole Car. The Wagner, however, was a bit more problematic.

Nicole Car. Photo supplied

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, Nicholas Braithwaite, is completely at home and extremely experienced with these late Romantic soundworlds. He has many decades’ experience as an international conductor, like his father (Warwick) before him, and has conducted seven Ring Cycles. He has absorbed this music since early childhood and conducted the program with distinction. The orchestra is also experienced in Wagner and its senior members accompanied two separate Ring Cycles to great acclaim in 1998 and 2004.

After a conversation with the composer’s grandson, who felt that the essence of this gargantuan Cycle lay in the music, the conductor Lorin Maazel arranged what he termed an 80-minute “symphonic synthesis” – Der Ring ohne Worte (The Ring without Words). His treatment has some marvellous moments as it follows the operas chronologically and includes many of Wagner’s orchestral highlights – Ride of the...