[Herlitzius] isn't afraid to push [her voice] to its limit...Generally, though, she does convey Elektra's switchback emotions with some power...Pape, an equally recurrent Orestes, is sonorous but restrained. So is Waltraud Meier's light-voiced Klytaemnestra...Thielemann seems to favour Teutonically rich sonorities over dramatic thrust.

[Thielemann] conducts with flexibility and clarity. There are no major surprises but, paradoxically, his reading never feels predictable either...This is Strauss-playing of the highest quality...Against this background, Herlitzius's vocal performance maybe sounds a little rougher than it might otherwise...but it remains dramatically compelling.

Musically, this is a scrupulously accurate account, if one lighter in texture than one expects, Thielemann more often applying a scalpel than a bludgeon. Thielemann’s cast sound absolutely inside their respective roles.

a must-hear for [Thielemann's] glorious Dresdeners.

It may be the most expressionist of all Strauss's scores, but the overriding impression of this recording is the sheer tonal beauty of the Dresden Staatskapelle under Thielemann: the singers often seem to surf on wave after wave of orchestral sumptuousness.