What to do in Brisbane when the ‘Olympics of opera’ is on: hidden restaurants, island tours and eye-catching art
- Host of the 2032 Olympic Games, Brisbane in Australia is a city in flux that offers everything from great food and absorbing culture to excellent day trips
- In December it will see the first digital production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas, which its director says will be like nothing audiences have seen before
In the beginning there was a serpent.
The Turrbal people, original inhabitants of the area that is now Queensland’s sun-drenched capital of Brisbane, tell of how before time began, the rainbow serpent Moodagurra moved over this landscape. The sinuous lines left in its wake became Maiwar, the Brisbane River, which encircles the Australian city within its curves.
Now a dragon is making its way to Brisbane, set to land on the banks of the same river.
Fafner, the giant who becomes a dragon, is one of the key characters in the Ring Cycle, the quartet of operas by Richard Wagner (1813-1883) that is regarded as the Olympics of opera – the most gruelling and glorious work to stage.
It will be performed at the riverside QPAC theatre in not one but three consecutive cycles, the first starting on December 1.
Nothing compares with the scale of the Ring Cycle operas, which in sequence consist of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. The series runs for a total of about 15 hours and requires more than 100 musicians and singers. It is usually staged over a week, with a rest day between each performance, to allow the artists to recover.