Opera Rara’s disinterring of forgotten works continues with this uneven gem by Saverio Mercadante, unheard for nearly two centuries but lifted from the Naples Conservatory archives by Carlo Rizzi, who conducts with pace and conviction. This studio recording was made around last summer’s concert at the Barbican.
The story is a love triangle but, like much else in the opera, it’s a bit more interesting than the standard issue. Based on a well-known play of the era, it unfolds in exotic 17th-century Scotland – names such as Argyll and Murray are relished in idiomatic Italian pronunciation – with Oliver Cromwell as an unseen villain. The exile of the title, believed dead, returns on the day his “widow” Malvina is due to marry a political rival, a strategic match with whom she has nonetheless fallen in love. To resolve this hopeless situation, Malvina sacrifices herself through suicide – either to maintain everyone’s honour or perhaps just to prove a point.
Opening with a bracing flurry of offstage trumpets, Mercadante gives us two big acts that finish with grand choral finales, followed by a shorter, leaner third that focuses on the private emotional wrangling of the three main characters. It all ends with a poignant yet compact death scene for Malvina, an unusually complex heroine beautifully sung here by Irene Roberts, her mellow mezzo-soprano drawing in the ear. If the structure feels a bit unbalanced, it still works.
Another unusual element is the fact that both leading men are tenors, making for a roistering duet of closely woven voices when they finally face off with each other. They are nicely cast here, the old hand Ramón Vargas sounding aptly more rugged and careworn as the exiled Giorgio, while the rising star Iván Ayón-Rivas is in glowingly expressive form as ardent Arturo. Similarly, Malvina is paired in mellifluous duet with another mezzo as her loyal brother Odoardo, a role with virtuoso passages that Elizabeth DeShong dispatches impressively. There’s a fine supporting cast, including Sally Matthews as Malvina’s scheming mother, and the chorus and versatile Britten Sinfonia are on characterful form.
This week’s other pick
More duets, instrumental rather than vocal: Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout’s new recording of violin sonatas by CPE Bach is a rewarding 70 minutes of silky-toned violin and eloquent keyboards. Two early sonatas are audibly the work of JS Bach’s son; the later ones graft a more modern musical sensibility on to those glorious roots.
