IN the years I've followed the career of Paul Rissmann, presenter extraordinaire, I've seen him tackle everything from James MacMillan and John Adams to Edgard Varese and Erik Satie.

But if ever he was confronted with Mission Impossible, it was on Saturday night in Glasgow, where he was booked to present a compressed arrangement by Henk de Vlieger of Wagner's Ring cycle: that's four operas at four nights at 16 or 17 hours to be delivered in 70 minutes. A tall order? I should say so. The RSNO has recorded it and it doesn't really work: it's like forcing size nine feet into size six shoes.

That it did come off on Saturday in the RSNO's Naked Classics presentation was a tribute to Rissmann's narrative powers and experience, the sheer firepower of the RSNO, and the clear and uncluttered command of Swiss conductor Philippe Bach, a new name to me, but clearly a man who has thought things through and knows how to achieve results.

Rissmann's strength in this production was his editorial acuity in deciding who and what to leave out. Of course we will all be miffed at our favourite bits having been excised (and I was spitting blood at he exclusion of the overwhelming Act One finale of The Valkyrie with Siegmunde and Sieglinde, who just didn't exist in this version). But in his depiction of the main characters, the sweep of the whole thing, and his stunning analysis of Wagner's saturation techniques of leitmotifs and their development, Rissmann hit the nail on the head, again and again.

A worthwhile experiment.

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