Placing Harrison Birtwistle alongside Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is eccentric, even perverse programming but that’s what the Proms are for.

Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus may be among the greatest contemporary operas but hardly anyone has seen it.

English National Opera premiered it in 1986, and the BBC mounted one performance in 1996. Since then, nothing.

Now, celebrating Birtwistle’s 75th birthday, the Proms came to the rescue but, no doubt fearing audience resistance, offered only the second act.

Still, it felt complete. Tim Hopkins’s rudimentary staging had the singers zombie-walking around the platform.

The score’s complexity requires two conductors (Martyn Brabbins and Ryan Wigglesworth), yet the orchestra is compact, full of subtle detail, electric guitars, for example, repeatedly combining to magical effect with harps.

Surround-sound electronics transformed the Albert Hall into a huge, snarling beast.

Peter Zinovieff’s ponderous libretto makes a simple story obscure but Birtwistle’s music responds superbly, its repetitions and rituals unfolding with cumulative power.

The vocal lines might be better characterised but the singers (amplified) gave everything.

Alan Oke’s Orpheus was the linchpin, while as Hecate, Claron McFadden, perched high in the organ loft, was the embodiment of coloratura hysteria.

Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver proved no more than an extended upbeat.

Building from a simple, keening melody, the slow-moving piece is dense with string glissandos that sometimes resemble an angry swarm of wasps, while an extended pizzicato episode reimagines Britten’s Simply Symphony for the dance-floor.

At half the length, it might have been twice as effective.
In between came Stravinsky’s Apollo, still shocking in its antique newness.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s playing was rhythmically acute, perhaps more lush, less stern than Stravinsky imagined. The night, however, was Birtwistle’s.

Repeated 24 August on BBC Radio 3, at 2pm (www.bbc.co.uk/proms).