Salome one day, Elektra the next: the Proms' Strauss weekend was a heady pairing that will go down as a highlight of this season. The BBC Symphony Orchestra's Elektra, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, lived up to the Deutsche Oper's iridescent Salome the night before, and in at least one respect improved on it: this time each singer had his or her role securely by heart, and with no music stands for the cast to step around, director Justin Way could make the presentation less static than he had for Salome. The five main principals in concert dress struck sparks off one another within their narrow strip of platform.
They had space to sing as well, thanks to Bychkov's expansive, fluid conducting. The BBCSO was on vibrant form. Did they sound quite as confident and at ease with this seething score as an opera-house orchestra might have? Perhaps not, but this was still quite a performance: the brass were searing at the bloodthirsty close of Elektra's first monologue, the wind dark and evil at the start of her scene with Clytemnestra, the whole orchestra voluptuous when she finally recognises her long-lost brother, Orestes.
Johan Reuter sang firmly and movingly in that role, and Gun-Brit Barkmin let fly a soaring, diamond-edged soprano as Chrysothemis, the third of Agamemnon's vengeful children. Their mother, guilty Clytemnestra, got a deliciously vivid performance from Felicity Palmer, full of villainous character but always sung, never snarled.
Wilder than any of them, US soprano Christine Goerke showed how she has made the role of Elektra her own. It's a huge voice, sometimes harsh at the top, and not always absolutely laser-guided on pitch, but it encompasses the character's fierceness and, yes, tenderness kaleidoscopically, painting them in colours that are constantly changing. Goerke played and sang to the back of the gallery, and, as the orchestra pounded out the redemptive final moments, rounded off her performance with a stone-drop death topple of which any actor would be proud.
• On iPlayer for 30 days. The Proms continue until 13 September. More details at bbc.co.uk/proms
