Mozart seldom put pen to music paper without a confirmed commission, but one notable exception is the Singspiel he started in Salzburg in autumn 1779. Fifteen numbers up to the end of Act 2 were completed, but by mid-1780 the project was abandoned. Eventually published in 1838 under the title Zaide, the incomplete work has been well served by a variety of recordings: the crackling theatrical atmosphere of Harnoncourt’s live concert performance is aided by a lively narrator plugging gaps in the plot, whereas Häselbock attempted a completion including some spoken dialogue and a finale. Such dramatised approaches have merits but also drawbacks, whereas Ian Page sensibly presents only the extant music. Classical Opera’s well-rounded interpretation offers a strong advocacy for the treasures within Mozart’s forsaken opera, in particular for his enthusiasm for quirky melodramas influenced by Benda (experiments which he never repeated), and Page’s account has more vitality than the somewhat placid version by the Academy of Ancient Music (although Goodwin’s cast boasts Lynne Dawson on marvellous form).

There is no overture, so Classical Opera’s top-notch orchestra begins with an entr’acte from Thamos, König in Ägypten packed with Sturm und Drang. The rhetoric adopted for the strings in the slaves’ opening chorus (‘Brüder, lasst uns lustig sein’) manages to be both sturdy and cheerful, and is astutely juxtaposed against the disconsolate mood of Gomatz’s anguished melodrama: the orchestral responses to each line of speech are paced and dramatised beautifully, and Allan Clayton delivers the spoken text with the same compassionate characterisation that he invests in his arias. Zaide’s ‘Ruhe sanft’ is a sure-fire success thanks to Sophie Bevan’s intelligent soulfulness, Rachel Chaplin’s plangent oboe (a little bit distant in the mix) and finely shaded strings. Stuart Jackson performs Soliman’s furious melodrama (‘Zaide entflohen!’) and vengeful aria (‘Der stolze Löw’) with controlled malevolence; the tyrant could have sounded more implacable from the outset of the melodrama, but perhaps the decision not to stamp and shout furiously in every line of the long scene characterises the villain’s response to bad news as a credible process of emotional complexity. There is compelling synergy between dramatically aware orchestral playing and Bevan’s marvellous singing in Zaide’s double-whammy of her serene lament after capture (‘Trostlos schluchzet Philomele’) and the defiant courage of her outburst in reaction to the death sentence (‘Tiger! wetze nur die Klauen’) – as powerful as any confrontation Mozart ever produced in his finished masterpieces.