Bartók specified a pretty large orchestra for his only opera, Bluebeard’s Castle, but it is doubtful if even he ever imagined it performed by more than 150 musicians. But this was the forces that the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain put on stage for its performance, with septuple woodwind, 10 horns, a quartet of harps and more than 80 strings. It was NYOGB’s first venture into opera, and a sumptuous sonic experience that, with Mark Elder conducting, was a convincing dramatic one too.

The performance had been given a concert staging by Daisy Evans – perhaps more static, less elaborate, than originally intended because the Judith, Rinat Shaham, had been a very late replacement for the original mezzo and needed to use a score, while the Bluebeard, Robert Hayward, sang from memory. Four members of the National Youth Theatre delivered the spoken prologue, reappearing at the end as Bluebeard’s imprisoned previous wives, while the members of the orchestra provided appropriate sighs and whispers during the performance, with the brass players raising their instruments to catch the light when the third door opens to reveal Bluebeard’s treasures.

A light tube snaked its way across the floor around the orchestra, changing colour according to the discoveries that Judith made behind the doors of Bluebeard’s castle, and surtitles were projected on to a video screen behind the orchestra, though their occasional lapses into Olde Englishe – “What seest thou Judith? ‘Tis my torture chamber” – really jarred.

Elder’s reading was not as expressionist as some – there’s more anguish to be wrung from the score’s chromaticisms than he offered, more dark psychological recesses to be explored – while for all the careful dramatic detail that Hayward brought to his role, he lacks the rich inky tone it ideally needs. But orchestrally it was magnificent; the C major outburst when the fifth door reveals the splendour of Bluebeard’s kingdom, with full orchestra and organ, was a treat in itself.

The concert began with vivid performances of a couple of early modernist orchestral showpieces. If Lyadov’s The Enchanted Lake was the opportunity for the strings to show refinement and control, then Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was the chance to put the wind sections through their paces. The final statement of the main theme, involving the whole orchestra, can rarely have sounded so demonic.

• Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 9 January and available on iPlayer for 30 days afterwards.