I had the same memory and when I just checked, I found several flights for around 600 EUR (~700Dollar) Rio-Hamburg. So it probably hasn't changed that much.Has that changed during the last years? In 2014, when I was in Brazil, it was significantly cheaper. More like 500-600 € if I remember correctly. Possibly the Real exchange rate has influenced that.
But for East Asia 500-600 are still normal for cheap flights.
Thanks for the great event!