Simone Young and the Sydney Symphony close the 2019 season in legendary style.

The charismatic Simone Young is one of Australia’s finest musical exports, at home in opera theatres and concert halls. Her gift for shaping musical narratives and mustering huge forces are valuable assets in Gustav Mahler’s dark and theatrical fairy tale.

Enchanted horns usher into dark forests where two brothers vie for the queen’s hand, with dire consequences… Inspired by stories from the Brothers Grimm, Das klagende Lied (The Sorrowful Song) calls for singers, choir and two orchestras (one of them off-stage). It is Mahler’s astonishingly assured opus one, a preview of his epic, kaleidoscopic symphonies. Like those, it bursts with the magic and mystery of nature, and the joys and fears of childhood.