Josef Myslivecek is slimly represented in The Classical Catalogue, and this is, I think, the first of his operas to be recorded. One of Mozart's most admired Bohemian contemporaries, a skilled symphonist and the composer of a good deal of enjoyable chamber music, he had his first opera, Il Parnasso confuso, performed in Parma in 1765, when he was 28. The Italians, in difficulties with pronouncing his name, translated it as Giovanni Venatorini: we might have called him Joseph Hunter. They also referred to him as il Boemo, a sobriquet he was proud to add to his name even though his 27 operas are all Italian. Bellerofonte was the third, and the first he wrote for Naples, in 1767. It brought him instant success with King Carlos and the Court, and success of a different kind with the principal soprano, Caterina Gabrieli, who became one of his many mistresses.
It is surprising to find the work virtually ignored in the only substantial study of Myslive- cek's operas, Josef Myslivecek und sein Opernepilog, by Rudolf Pecman (Brno: 1970), who gives greatest emphasis to his penultimate opera, Medonte. Bellerofonte is certainly an attractive work. It is an opera seria, to a text by Giuseppe Bonecchi that takes only the superfices of the classical legend of Bellerophon and fits them to a fairly conventional set of situations. That, of course, was what was wanted; but it is interesting to find how much this inexperienced young Bohemian, arriving in an unfamiliar city with a particular commission, can do to extend and enliven conventions that were often merely stifling. He does little with the recitatives, which are lengthy (there is a full translation, with the Italian original, Czech, slightly erratic and misleading English, and German). But the arias reveal a lively and skilful mind. Most are cast in da capo form, of course, but Myslivecek seizes the opportunities offered by Neapolitan opera at this late stage to turn conventions to dramatic effect. The da capo sections are seldom strict, and the changes functional to the expression. Early in Act 1, Ariobates sings of the plot against him in a rondo aria whose alternations are made properly expressive of his confused emotions; Douglas Ahlstedt handles this well. Some of the other arias are more straightforward: Myslivecek gives Argene an aria with a fine horn obbligato that was clearly something expected of the available performers at some point, and Gladys Mayo delivers some quite nimble coloratura in the process. Other arias are simpler and shorter. The intention is clearly to answer the demands of convention without affronting them, but to do so in a personal voice; and it is not hard to see why so lively and tuneful a work won its composer commissions all over Italy.
The cast respond well to the work's demands, and the recording (apart from the mercifully token appearance of the chorus) is excellent. Zoltan Pesko conducts the Prague Chamber Orchestra in a performance that responds with the greatest liveliness to the music's energy and grace, keeping tempos brisk, rhythms lively, and phrasing tender without more sentimentality than fits the conventions. This is a very enterprising revival, and it could give a lot of enjoyment to anyone with a feeling for eighteenth-century opera. Whether or not it is true that Mozart was in any way influenced by Myslivecek, it is easy to see why he admired his friend's ''fire, spirit and life''.'