Opera

Die Walkure

Perth Concert Hall

Michael Tumelty

Four stars

What an afternoon in Perth on Sunday, with the second opera from Wagner’s Ring Cycle, The Valkyrie, given in an arrangement for smaller forces, made by composer Jonathan Dove, with a bit of editing... though it still came in at three and a half hours. It was given by a reduced-scale orchestra, with Will Conway’s Hebrides Ensemble at its core, amplified by the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland’s Camerata Scotland, some 17 mature players, all on the edge of the profession.

It was opera right in your face, and it was quite an experience. It had been staged on Friday night by Berwick Festival Opera, a newish, spunky company, and imported by Perth Concert Hall. There was little in the way of staging or props: it was Giles Havergal’s “woolly jumper” philosophy in action, with Wotan in a smart suit suitable for the boss, Brunnhilde in a black dress, Sieglinde in a pink one, and the fiery Valkyries in something a bit less flameproof.

There were some cuts (Hunding wasn’t around much) but let’s not get picky. This was the real McCoy, with very detailed Hebrides playing, fleshed out with terrific playing from the NYOS band and given the full Wagner surge by conductor Peter Selwyn with an impressive cast: Donald Samm’s Siegmund a bit stolid to start, and Paul Carey Jones’s Wotan a bit prosaic.

Janice Watson played an emotional blinder with Sieglinde, though that concept was totally redefined when the Valkyrie girls, along with Andrea Baker’s incendiary Fricka and Miriam Murphy’s Brunnhilde, all stormed the stage with their ho-jo-to-hos. What firepower. What an assault, a glorious racket and a tremendous occasion.