The 1805 (and even 1806) early versions of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, were celebrated more on radio than in fully staged performance in the composer’s less historically omnivorous bicentenary year of 1970. Generally the singers were of local/national rather than international quality, the conducting ditto. The present production, not released until now, is an obvious exception to that rule of thumb, the cast looking (and sounding) like they have been borrowed from a recent and high-class Fidelio.

There may not have been much rehearsal and it may well have been largely read from scores but the performance has real fire and impact. It is stylishly led by the Hungarian Carl Melles, a seemingly regular substitute at top opera venues of the time: his list of ‘jump-in’ performances includes a 1966 Bayreuth run of Wieland Wagner’s Tannhäuser with Anja Silja and Jess Thomas.

The cast are absolutely top-drawer for the time and attack their novel challenges with relish, none more so than Gwyneth Jones, whose fearless attack on the (very) high tessitura of Beethoven’s first go at his rescuing heroine rightly leads the way. It’s also a pleasure in this version, where she has so much more to do than in Fidelio, to catch Rotraud Hansmann – otherwise on record in Harnoncourt’s Monteverdi or as bit parts in Decca’s studio Wagner – as a light and lyrical Marzelline, an ideal (and rare) contrast to Jones’s more Helden-tones in the title-role. They are of course heard together in one of the rare peaks of Leonore, the Act 2 duet (remember we’re in three acts in this first take of the material) ‘Um in der Ehe froh zu leben’, with its finely shaped obbligato accompaniments.

Another rare peak that disappeared all too soon from the Leonore project is ‘Ich kann mich noch nicht fassen’ – what one might call the ‘full version’ of the ‘Namenlose Freude’ dungeon duet in which Leonore and her (hopefully) liberated husband have more than 10 minutes of an ecstasy that Beethoven rarely approached elsewhere, and Leonore a thrilling nightmare of a vocal line. (Was it deliberate of Beethoven to take virtually all her role up what feels like an octave at the moment she’s revealed as a woman in disguise?) Another ‘rare peak’ which is, sadly, in no way a summit is the composer’s attempt at a heroic act (2) finale for Pizarro, not at all the equal of the number one might imagine Italian contemporaries such as Rossini or Bellini emerging from with a triumphant ‘hit’.

Enthusiasm for this new release – which could otherwise have rivalled even the recent historically informed René Jacobs release (Harmonia Mundi, 2/20) or the reliable older Herbert Blomstedt (Brilliant or Berlin Classics, 8/77) – is, again sadly, reduced by the fact that the nature of the project (economising on rehearsal time mixed with 1970s scepticism about international singers in speaking roles) means that there is no dialogue whatever. And one of the great fascinations about the first Leonores (1806 included now) is that the drama has intriguingly more to say about the personal lives of the two women than the more straightforwardly heroic 1814 Fidelio. But you pays your money (and you don’t get your choice) – and there is still just about enough finely acted and conducted singing to make this journey worthwhile as a supplement to the more complete recordings cited above.