Lucretia didn't fare well at its first performance in 1946. Britten put this down to the opera's Christian postlude. While this can't have helped, what troubled audiences more was the arcane dramatic structure: with the exception of act two, scene two (the morning after the rape), the action is often presented indirectly, with two narrators constantly interjecting with plot fillers and history lessons. As an opera, it's a tough nut to crack.

Performed as a kind of oratorio, however, it makes more sense, revealing the score as one of Britten's richest. This was certainly the impression given by a star-studded concert performance at the Aldeburgh festival's opening weekend. The narrators – Ian Bostridge and Susan Gritton, no less – stood out front, while the character soloists, Angelika Kirchschlager as Lucretia and Peter Coleman-Wright as Tarquinius among them, occupied a raised platform behind the small orchestra.

Everything, without exception, was right on the money. Bostridge and Gritton vied with each other for clarity of diction and gesture, while Kirchschlager's magnificent Lucretia was direct and powerfully sympathetic. Claire Booth and Hilary Summers, as maid and nurse respectively, sent the mellifluous flower duet wafting seductively around the Maltings' rafters. Best of all was the orchestra, revelling in its extraordinary palette of colours, and showing how the score so often hangs like gossamer off the vocal lines. Oliver Knussen conducted neatly, precisely and economically – in short, giving his players and singers everything they needed to make Britten's return to Aldeburgh a dazzling success.