We show how spectral submanifold (SSM) theory can be used to extract forced-response curves without any numerical simulation in high-degree-of-freedom, periodically forced mechanical systems. We use multivariate recurrence relations to construct the SSMs, achieving a major speed-up relative to earlier autonomous SSM algorithms. The increase in computational efficiency promises to close the current gap between studying lower-dimensional academic examples and analyzing larger systems obtained from finite-element modeling, as we illustrate on two different discretized damped-forced beam models. Using the exact reduction procedure via SSMs for obtaining forced response curves, we further demonstrate speed gains of several orders in magnitude relative to the available state-of-the-art continuation packages, while retaining accuracy.@en