The première of The Bassarids, at the Salzburg Festival in August 1966 some six weeks after the composer’s 40th birthday, was the high water mark of Henze’s early career. In it, he synthesised, from the varied threads in his music, a vibrant yet accessible language that united the operatic and the symphonic, the tonal and the dodecaphonic. If the complexity of Auden’s and Kallman’s libretto militated against out-and-out popularity, critical estimation ran high.

Dohnányi’s première account was justly praised at the time, judging from Orfeo’s fine remastering. Compared to Schwann’s pioneering studio recording from 1990, Orfeo’s sound does lack a little depth, but its clarity is exemplary. (Listen, for example, to the delicate mandolin accompaniment in the Intermezzo, ‘The Judgement of Calliope’, at the start of disc two’s first track.) There is a tangible sense of occasion and excitement running throughout, with just enough onstage noise to confirm that the performance is live without being obtrusive. Moreover, Dohnányi underscored the work’s theatricality, whereas Albrecht, in a rich, studio-bound acoustic, emphasised its symphonic nature, each of its four movements corresponding to an act.

It is a testament to the musical integrity of Dohnányi’s account that it can stand comparison with Albrecht’s masterly version. Loren Driscoll makes a fine, other-worldly Dionysus, more remote and terrifying than Kenneth Riegel. Peter Lagger does not make so great an impression as Robert Tear, though this may be due to the singular qualities of Tear’s voice. But the core relationship is that of Pentheus and his ultimately murderous mother Agave, compellingly sung here by Kostas Paskalis and Kerstin Meyer. Andreas Schmidt perhaps has the edge for Schwann, but Meyer – doubling as Venus in the ‘The Judgment of Calliope’ (omitted by Albrecht, the one negative aspect of his recording) – outshines even Karan Armstrong. The Vienna State Opera Chorus do sound a touch strained in places compared with Albrecht’s well-drilled chorus, but then Albrecht did not have to move about the stage.

For all the incidental infelicities that come with an archival issue of a staged performance from the 1960s, this remastered Bassarids has much to commend. If it does not displace its rival, the inclusion of ‘The Judgment of Calliope’, once separately available but no longer, is a distinct bonus and the documentary value of the première outing of one of the 20th century’s greater operas is undeniable.