Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 29 May 2026

 

Under the assured direction of Chief Conductor Mark Wigglesworth, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s third concert in its flagship Symphony Series was a glorious celebration of German art music. The stage of the Adelaide Town Hall was filled to capacity with nearly one hundred musicians, delivering a blistering performance of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with celebrated soprano Helena Dix, alongside Hank de Vlieger’s The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure, an hour-long orchestral synthesis of Richard Wagner’s monumental operatic tetralogy The Ring.

 

The concert was immense, leaving the audience in an elevated, awe-inspired state—and it could conceivably have been even better.

 

As is now customary, the ASO opens its Symphony Series concerts with a musical Acknowledgement of Country: Pudnanthi Padninthi II – Wadna, written by Kaurna composer Jamie Goldsmith in collaboration with Kaurna Narungga artist Jack Buckskin and orchestrator Mark Simeon Ferguson. Commissioned by the orchestra earlier this decade, the work unfolds with a steady, earthy rhythmic pulse intended to honour the Adelaide Plains and traditional ceremonial practices before expanding into a broad and sweeping orchestral landscape. Sometimes the ASO performs the work without a conductor, but on this occasion, Wigglesworth took the reins, directing the vast musical forces on stage to produce what was perhaps the most compelling account of the piece yet heard. The thematic material passed deliberately between the string sections, maintaining a clearly defined tempo that underpinned everything else. The result was both striking and deeply affecting. Perhaps the enlarged orchestra affords a conductor greater interpretative freedom with the work. It is not common for audiences to applaud the musical acknowledgement with enthusiasm, but on this occasion they certainly did.

 

Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs are sublime meditations on the passing of time and the inevitability of death. Such subject matter might easily descend into melancholy, yet Strauss’ settings of texts by the German poets Josef von Eichendorff and Hermann Hesse are anything but sombre. Instead, they radiate beauty, serenity, acceptance, and at times even rapture. They stand among the crowning achievements of the art-song repertoire.

 

Performing them places extraordinary demands upon the soprano. She must possess profound breath control, faultless legato, and considerable stamina as she navigates Strauss’ opulent orchestration, ensuring that the most delicate pianissimi are meaningfully juxtaposed against climaxes that seem to engulf everything around them. Not only must she be a singer of exceptional accomplishment, but ideally an actress capable of illuminating the meaning behind every phrase. Helena Dix possesses all these qualities, and she appeared commanding yet vulnerable in her richly appointed emerald-green and black gown.

Dix was only one of almost one hundred accomplished musicians on stage, yet all eyes were on her. At times, her own gaze seemed fixed solely upon Concertmaster Kate Suthers as she delivered a luminous account of the long, soaring violin solo in the third song, Beim Schlafengehen (Upon Going to Sleep). Two classy women, seemingly alone within a crowd, sharing a sublime musical moment.

 

Beim Schlafengehen proved the most successful of the set, as the assembled might of the orchestra was occasionally allowed to overwhelm the soprano to such an extent that she could barely be heard. One audience member remarked to me afterwards that Helena Dix had “more in the tank”, and it is difficult not to agree. It was a pity that she either did not, or was not permitted to, fully unleash the splendour of her instrument. Having said that, the dynamic trajectory she shaped across the four songs was thoughtful and carefully judged; the orchestra was simply too loud.

 

As the final note of the fourth song, Im Abendrot (At Sunset), settled and gently dissolved into silence, one could almost hear a pin drop in the vast auditorium of the Adelaide Town Hall. Ten full seconds passed in complete stillness. Then came thunderous applause for a sublime soprano. Helena Dix was entirely at home on the stage.

 

There are no such complaints with the Wagner/de Vlieger. Much of Wagner’s music is immense in every sense of the word and requires vast musical resources if it is to achieve its full effect. This is certainly true of The Ring, and de Vlieger’s arrangement (which is purely instrumental and involves no singing) gathers key moments from each of the four operas in a manner that thoroughly disproves the famous quip that “Wagner has beautiful moments, but awful quarters of an hour!” The remark, frequently attributed to the Italian composer Rossini, neatly captures the divide between Wagner’s admirers and detractors: the former hear luxuriant orchestration and revolutionary harmonic language, while the latter hear an assault on patience and stamina.

 

Wherever one sits on that continuum of appreciation, Wagner’s long, meditative stretches are precisely what make the climactic moments feel so overwhelmingly exhilarating. This is exactly the effect Wigglesworth achieved with the ASO. Together they settled upon tempi that perfectly suited both the scale of the orchestra and the acoustic of the Town Hall. Wagner aficionados absorbed every moment and marvelled at what Wigglesworth and the ASO were accomplishing on stage. Those less familiar with Wagner responded with equal delight when recognisable passages such as the Ride of the Valkyries emerged from the orchestral texture.

 

Seventy minutes later—though it felt considerably less—the final notes of the concluding excerpt from Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene rang out, and once again an eerie silence settled over the auditorium. The large audience appeared to absorb the immensity and gravity of what it had just heard and experienced. Then, just as it had at the end of the first half, the hall erupted into heartfelt, generous, and sustained applause in appreciation of a magnificent programme.

 

Mark Wigglesworth’s beaming smile said it all. When he received the traditional congratulatory floral arrangement, he immediately sought out principal horn player Adrian Uren and presented it to him in recognition of his gorgeous off-stage horn solo in Movement VIII (Siegfried’s Heldentat). The gesture delighted both the audience and his fellow musicians, providing a fittingly warm conclusion to a remarkable evening of music-making.

 

Kym Clayton

 

When: 29 to 30 May

Where: Adelaide Town Hall

Bookings: Closed