Over the years, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s performances have ranged from conventional concerts to fully fledged spectacles boasting elaborate scenery and even acrobats. Others could best be described as semi-staged, again with varying degrees of complexity – a projection here, a tableau vivant there, or simply a marriage of words and music with good lighting.

The latter is what we have here, with ABO’s latest offering, Vivaldi’s Legacy, which is led on Baroque Violin by Guest Director Augusta McKay Lodge in her Australian debut.

The music in question is that of Vivaldi and his contemporaries, Pisendel, Tartini and Visconti – a compelling catalogue that is as effervescent as it is affecting.

The words are by Alana Valentine, and what beautiful words they are. That should come as no surprise; Valentine wrote and directed the AWGIE Award-winning Notre-Dame for ABO, while the oratorio Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan, co-written with Christos Tsiolkas and composed by Joseph Twist, is one of the finest additions to the canon in recent times.

McKay Lodge and Valentine take us back to Venice’s convent and orphanage, L’Ospedale della Pietà, where we encounter the prodigiously talented multi-instrumentalist Anna Maria della Pietà, embodied here to perfection by actor Lilian Alejandra Valverde.

Augusta McKay Lodge in Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Vivaldi’s Legacy. Photo © Keith Saunders

Sensitively lit by Poppy Townsend, Valverde appears at intervals throughout the concert, running the gamut from wide-eyed optimism to disillusionment, burgeoning faith, unbridled passion and pride.

Such interventions can go pear-shaped when not handled correctly, but as she demonstrated in Notre-Dame, Valentine is a dab hand at this, and her words immediately accentuate the vitality inherent in the music curated by McKay.

We first encounter Anna Maria as she eagerly awaits each new arrival at the Ospedale della Pietà, each child deposited through a revolving hatch called the scaffetta, its evocative “clunk” just one example of Valentine’s onomatopoeic text.

Valverde perfectly conveys the young Anna Maria’s naïve optimism as she imagines catching her mother’s eye during a recital at the orphanage – her need to believe in their secret pact and the smiles they share is heartrendingly real.

Lilian Alejandra Valverde in Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Vivaldi’s Legacy. Photo © Keith Saunders

Just as potent is her increasing doubt. Did her mother ever visit the orphanage? Is she even alive? As this dawns on her, Anna Maria turns to the Virgin Mary for the mother’s attentions she so craves. Could she cherish her as she cherishes Our Lord Jesus?

In a stroke of genius, and what is one of the most satisfying musical segues this writer can recall, Valverde’s invocation of the Virgin Mary is immediately followed by Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Organ in C major. The uplift of the ABO’s rapid-fire strings during the opening ritornello is topped off by the sparkling upper register of the chamber organ, played here by ABO Artistic Director Paul Dyer.

Then, during the Adagio, McKay Lodge joins Dyer for an interwoven dialogue between organ and violin that not only shows off the players’ camaraderie, but also elevates the concerto to heights of absolute euphoria, guiding the listener from the initial radiance of the opening into a realm of sublime beauty so profound it elicits tears of joy.

Augusta McKay Lodge and Paul Dyer in Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Vivaldi’s Legacy. Photo © Keith Saunders

Anna Maria, meanwhile, finds joy in playing, although she laments the screens that protect the orphans from the outside world, the plague and prying eyes.

And as Valverde appears against the golden hue of the choir gallery above the concert podium, she relinquishes all hopes of ever being ‘Vivaldi’s progeny’. Instead, she proudly accepts the moniker ‘Vivaldi’s legacy’ – a mystical union achieved not by blood, but through the sublime power of the music she inspires within il Prete Rosso (the Red-Haired Priest).

The works chosen by McKay Lodge are testament to her profound musicianship. She demonstrates superb technical mastery throughout, from the serenity of the Andante from Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin in B-flat major ‘in due cori con violino discordato’, RV 583, to her finger-blurring virtuosity in the Concerto in D major, RV 229, written to show off Anna Maria’s extraordinary abilities and dexterity.

Melissa Farrow in Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Vivaldi’s Legacy. Photo © Keith Saunders

The evening achieves further heights when Principal Baroque Flautist Melissa Farrow joins the ensemble for a delightful, bird-mimicking rendition of Vivaldi’s Il Gardellino (The Goldfinch), RV 428.

Beyond her solo contributions, McKay Lodge engenders a heartwarming communal vibe on stage. She builds an immediate rapport with her fellow players, most notably Concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen, and it carries across the orchestra.

Their colleagues clearly derive a great deal of pleasure from making music with them. Broad smiles are never far from the lips of Associate Concertmaster Matthew Bruce and Assistant Principal Matthew Greco.

It’s a joy that permeates the audience too. For once, being infectious is a good thing. All that remains is to succumb.

Australian Brandenburg presents Vivaldi’s Legacy at City Recital Hall Sydney until 18 August; Melbourne Recital Centre, 20–23 August; and QPAC, Brisbane on 25 August.