Karina Canellakis conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of Richard Strauss's Elektra at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, drawing praise for the huge orchestra's playing and, above all, for an outstanding cast of singers. Elektra's vast instrumental forces, including heckelphones, basset horns and Wagner tubas, make staged productions impractical for all but the best-funded opera companies, so concert performances offer a rare chance to experience Strauss's dissonant, dramatic score at full scale.

The orchestra, numbering 111 players, delivered both overwhelming climaxes and refined moments of calm with exceptional clarity and balance under Canellakis's economical direction. Every role was well sung, from the maidservants Lea Shaw and Emma Morwood and Overseer Lee Bisset, through Günther Groissböck's Oreste and John Daszak's Aegisthus, but the evening was dominated by the three principal women: Karen Cargill as a disintegrating Klytämnestra, Vida Miknevičiūtė as a radiant Chrysothemis, and Ingela Brimberg's tireless, nuanced performance in the demanding title role. Despite having no directorial staging, the singers' acting and use of the performance space conveyed the opera's horror with an intensity the review suggests even elaborate stage productions or film could struggle to match.