A legend comes to life on disc and proves even better than its reputation on paper. Magically restored and transferred by Paul Baily from what must have been recalcitrant source material, this Elektra is by turns terrifying, classical, utterly contemporary and one of the most exultant accounts of Strauss's “utmost limits of polyphony” that we have yet had access to.

Kempe, a compelling narrator of Strauss and Wagner, is caught here at the peak of his powers. He takes risks with his well played-in company. From the word go, Lammers's Elektra is on another planet of human stress and experience; it's a big, flexible voice astutely used. Kempe supports her with manic grandeur in a broad account of the opening monologue that never detracts from the emotional range that will follow. When Otakar Kraus's Orestes first confronts his sister, Kempe similarly pitches a wide, slow tempo for the chorale-like accompaniment, one that pays dividends after the explosive moment of recognition and the scene gradually accelerates into the passion of shared hatred. But, for Kempe, all this is small gruel compared to the final stretto: no other version I know is so uninhibited in the orchestral accompaniment to Elektra's fatal last dance, the trumpets pitching in ecstatically before a succession of final chords that, for dynamic extremes, are unmatched by the sophisticated studio recordings that were to follow.

Decca's pioneering Solti/Nilsson set made a massive stereo audio event of Klytemnestra's laughing exit when she hears the apparent news of Orestes' death. Von Milinkovic and Kempe achieve more with less, not least the needlepoint woodwinds and rhythmic sharpness of the ROH orchestra. Elsewhere, the veteran Evans is a real and never over-neurotic Aegisthus; the maids who start it all off (Adorno's favourite scene in all Strauss, and you can hear what he meant here) are given as much love and time to phrase and characterise by their chief as are the stars who follow. Indeed, the cast throughout feel like a well honed repertory company at full stretch.

There are several Elektras in the catalogue which deserve the term “great” - Mitropoulos (twice), Reiner, Barenboim, Sinopoli (yes!), perhaps Böhm and Solti - and many in more modern sound - but, at the moment, this unearthing of a famous evening would be my clear first choice.