Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra: Inside Nina Stemme’s exclusive Hobart concert

Swedish soprano Nina Stemme will be reunited with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra on a return visit to Hobart to perform in an Australian-exclusive, all Wagner program at the Federation Concert Hall.

Swedish soprano Nina Stemme will perform in Hobart with the TSO. Picture: NEDA NAVAEE

THE highlight of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra season in Hobart on Saturday will be an Australian-exclusive all-Wagner program sung by leading Wagner exponents Swedish soprano Nina Stemme and her fellow countryman bass-baritone John Lundgren.

The concert will feature TSO conductor laureate Marko Letonja and include musicians from the Australian National Academy of Music, and tenor and bass voices of the TSO Chorus, led by chorusmaster June Tyzack.

Letonja, Stemme and the TSO and chorus were part of the Helpmann Award-winning performance for Best Orchestral Performance when they performed highlights of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in 2016.

TSO artistic planning director Simon Rogers says he and the orchestra are delighted by Stemme’s return.

“The Tristan and Isolde concert was a benchmark experience,” he says.

“It was certainly one of the highlights of my career.

“It was a bit of a dream of ours to get Nina Stemme back, and then a couple of years ago Marko Letonja conducted her and John Lundgren in a Swedish production of The Ring Cycle in Stockholm. He commented to them it would be great to do something like that in Hobart, and amazingly they said they’d love to.”

Rogers says the program will include excerpts from The Ring Cycle and The Flying Dutchman.

Lundgren and Stemme sing the roles of the ruler of the gods, Wotan, and his daughter Brunnhilde.

“We’ve chosen some really telling moments in the story, including Scene 1 Act II of Die Walkure,” Rogers says.

“We first encounter Brunnhilde joyously singing, and that is followed by the orchestral Ride of the Valkyries.

“Then the final scene of the Die Walkure is particularly dramatic, long and touching. Wotan metes out his punishment of Brunnhilde and she asks for a wall of fire to be built around the rock in which she is to lie.”

In the second half of the concert Lundgren sings the Overture, which represents the tempestuous sea journey, and the Dutchman’s monologue Die Frist ist Um from The Flying Dutchman.

“Lundgren is one of the great Dutchmen in the world,’’ Rogers says. “He has a tremendous voice that has power, richness, warmth and depth and a great Wagnerian tone. This is tailor-made for him.”

He says extra dramatisation will be achieved through the work of Swedish lighting designer Bengt Gomer, who has just finished working with the New York Philharmonic.

“We’ve asked him to design lighting to enhance the audience experience,” Rogers says.

“It will be particularly effective in highlighting sections of Wagner’s long sweeps of music, and to further bring out the emotional journey of the characters.”

The concert is at the Federation Concert Hall in Hobart at 7.30pm on Saturday. Tickets are priced from $144, available from tso.com.au