Rossini wrote Elizabeth, Queen of England for the star-studded San Carlo Opera in Naples in 1815. The plot is a verse reduction of a half-remembered drama by an Italian advocate out of an entertaining but historically implausible English romance. While campaigning in Scotland, the Queen’s inamorato, the Earl of Leicester, has fallen in love with and married Matilde, unaware that she is a child of the hated Mary, Queen of Scots. Unwisely, he confides his dilemma to Norfolk who stirs up a hornets’ nest of emotional intrigue by revealing all to the queen. Isabella Colbran created the role of Elizabeth, with Andrea Nozzari as Leicester, Manuel García as Norfolk and Girolama Dardanelli as Matilde.

There is as yet no Critical Edition of Elisabetta. An acknowledgement in the booklet which accompanies this splendidly theatrical Opera Rara recording refers to a new performing edition by Ian Schofield based on the autograph manuscript; elsewhere, a press release has spoken of the opera being recorded complete and with the original orchestration. Alas, the lavish booklet fails to elaborate on these matters. Nor as far as I can see does it explain why some seemingly redundant sections of the text and translation are in double inverted commas. Passages of Schmidt’s libretto not set by Rossini? We should be told.

The opera was first recorded in 1975 as part of Philips’s pioneering Rossini edition. The Philips cast was – is – first-rate: Montserrat Caballé in the title role, Valerie Masterson as Matilde, the young José Carreras as Leicester and Ugo Benelli as Norfolk. The recording was based on a stage production at the 1975 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Yet for all that, it is not a particularly theatrical performance. Caballé’s singing is exquisite. Her rendering of Elizabeth’s final aria, ‘Bell’alme generose’, is bel canto singing of an order of fineness you feel privileged to hear once in a lifetime, let alone at the press of a button. Yet, when all’s said and done, this isn’t a Colbran voice in the way that Jennifer Larmore’s riper, darker mezzo-soprano undoubtedly is.

Stendhal wrote of Colbran’s Elizabeth: ‘When Signorina Colbran talked with Matilde, it was impossible to escape the irrefutable conviction that this woman had reigned for 20 years as a queen whose authority was absolute and supreme. It was the ingrained acceptance of the manners and mannerisms bred by despotic power which characterised the acting of this great artist.’ This is very much Larmore’s way, too. Her performance, formidably well sung, has presence, character, and a real sense of ingrained authority. The lovely cantabile duet for Elizabeth and Matilde at the start of Act 2 is sung to perfection by Caballé and Masterson but there is a greater depth of emotion, a grainier, gutsier feel to Larmore’s performance with Majella Cullagh’s equally characterful, if not at every point inch-perfect, Matilde.

There is little to choose between Carreras’s Leicester and Bruce Ford’s – Carreras perhaps wins on points with a certain added youthful allure – but Opera Rara’s Antonio Siragusa is a more compelling Norfolk than Ugo Benelli, who sings splendidly but without much menace. Siragusa is very fine. This is far more interesting Rossini singing than anything I have yet heard from the heavily promoted Juan Diego Flórez. With such strong casting, it goes without saying that the great confrontations in the opera – Elizabeth and Norfolk, Leicester and Norfolk, and so on – all come vividly to life.

Both recordings place the orchestra rather to the rear of things but the Opera Rara performance has a richer, darker feel to it. This is partly to do with Carella’s conducting and the London Philharmonic’s playing; partly to do with the fact that orchestration is clearly different in places: try, for example, the accompaniment to the Act 1 chorus ‘Vieni, o prode’ or the very end of the opera.

The Philips performance is on two mid-price CDs, the Opera Rara, with its uncut recitatives and 83-minute Act 1, spills over on to three full-price discs. (Opera Rara’s own timing suggests a 76-minute Act 1 but it is not the least of the company’s eccentricities that their timings are often wrong.) If you have the Philips set, this Opera Rara performance is also worth acquiring since it complements it to perfection. For first-time buyers, the Opera Rara is the one to go for, despite Caballé’s exquisite singing on the earlier set.