Stampiglia’s libretto Partenope was first set to music in 1699 for Naples; the title-heroine was named after the siren founder of the city. Most of the aria texts were changed for a version by the Neapolitan composer Leonardo Vinci for Venice’s illustrious Teatro San Giovanni Gristostomo in 1725. Handel certainly knew Vinci’s music – within months he used seven arias in his London pasticcio Elpidia – but his own setting of Partenope (1730) was based on a different libretto from 1707. The title of Vinci’s opera was actually La Rosmira fedele, so ought to have been used for this premiere recording. Antonio Florio cuts six substantial arias in this live recording made during three staged performances in Murcia; there are a few clunks, bangs, rounds of applause and imperfections in orchestral intonation, but I Turchini’s string ritornellos are shaped with finesse, and oboes make a few telling contributions. Anachronistic harp continuo abounds, whereas the theorbo is surprisingly absent.

Vinci tailored the title-part of Rosmira for the celebrated local prima donna Faustina Bordoni, and the autograph manuscript reveals a musically and dramatically ambitious role. I cannot fathom why three of her most interesting and important arias are cut, especially when Maria Grazia Schiavo is such a capable performer: ‘Tormentosa, crudel gelosia’ shows her consumed by jealousy because she has been betrayed by the philanderer Arsace, who has fallen under the siren’s seductive spell. The beautiful short arioso in which she reveals his treachery to Partenope (the brief siciliano ‘Arsace, o Dio’) and her later admission that she still loves him are the highlights of Act 3. Maria Ercolano’s pealing coloratura is impressive as Arsace naively vows to keep Rosmira’s true identity secret (‘La rondinella’). Sonia Prina is most at home with the imperious aspects of Partenope’s character (‘Godi e spera’, in which she vengefully discards Arsace having learnt of his prior betrothal to Rosmira). Stefano Ferrari sings Armindo’s eloquent love arias drily, and Eufemia Tufano sounds stretched in the bluff Emilio’s trumpet aria ‘Forti schiere, vicino è il cimento’. Albeit truncated and uneven, this confirms Vinci as a meritorious opera composer.