Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at the Auckland Town Hall

Yet again, Xian Zhang proved herself a conductor with an individual ear for the most mainstream repertoire, when the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert opened with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.

Clarinets and bassoons gave out their chorale with chilling precision; around them, strings and horns pierced the calm with premonitions of tragedy.

Apart from an irritating lack of synchronisation from time to time, the orchestra was at its best.

The strife theme blazed out, violas and clarinets introduced the swooping love theme without a blush, while, towards the end, strings and timpani lent a ghostly anguish to Shakespeare's tragedy.

This dramatic mood was continued in Michael Lewis' vivid account of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death.

Despite singing from a printed score, the baritone caught the Grim Reaper in his many persuasive characterisations. Whether wheedling a child from a forlorn mother or gloating over the human spoils of battle in the final song, Lewis had just the right psychological insight for this unique music.

Zhang and the orchestra expertly tracked Lewis in his many inflections of mood. Shostakovich's 1962 orchestration is a study in quiet terror, with exotic woodwind nuancings and key contributions for a quartet of horns. The orchestra, to a player, was magnificent.

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring had a fiery premiere in 1913; the passing of almost a century has not dimmed its primal energies or its very real challenge to orchestral musicians.

Zhang set the scene with a seemingly casual inevitability, springing to life on the podium when the Dance of the Adolescents unleashed the full power of the enlarged orchestra.

The Mock Abduction was a rush of adrenalin and we were made to feel the almost lugubrious weight of the rival tribes before another headlong rush took us through the Dance of the Earth. The shifting, wafting chords that introduce the Second Part were the calm before the storm.

Frenzy was upon us once more by the Glorification of the Chosen Victim, and despite the measured contribution of the Ancestors' music, Zhang and orchestra spared nothing in the demonic fury of the final Sacrificial Dance.