Towards the bottom of a capacious barrel, these two one-act operas with titles to which (is it safe to say?) none of our readers will be able to put a single tune, have lain in darkness and silence for more than 150 years. They now come forth in some- thing like glory, confounding the prophets who assuredly must have cried ‘Disturb them not! Let them lie! They’re better where they are!’

Francesca di Foix dates from 1831, shortly after Donizetti’s great success with Anna Bolena. Designated ‘melodramma giocoso’, it tells of an amusing episode at Court, where arrangements are made to welcome a lovely young Countess whom her mean old husband normally keeps at home more or less under lock and key. The libretto is deftly woven and the music is fresh and high-spirited. As Jeremy Commons says in his introductory essay, it is ‘a witty and often wry little satirical comedy… a quirky odd-man-out in Donizetti’s output’.

Elvida is earlier (1826), more serious and less worth taking seriously. Its story crams the action of a full-length opera into three short scenes. A more mature composer might have identified his characters with music that was uniquely theirs rather than merely fitting them up as character-types. And yet there is much to enjoy. Again, Dr Commons points helpfully, in this case, to a trio near the end of the opera as ‘the jewel in the crown’. Personally, my feelings turn towards admiration even at moments when Donizetti makes us smile and tap our feet while the librettist is urging us to cower in horror at the likely fate of the noble heroine and her manly lover. It was once considered facile (in a pejorative sense) to have such a ready supply of melodies at hand; today, when the supply seems to have dried up completely, this is a complaint we are perhaps less likely to make.

The operas, though boxed separately, are well-paired. Each was written for a royal occasion, which meant that nobody paid them much attention. As little one-acters they got lost after four performances (Elvida) or seven (Francesca). They were also written for star singers (Lablache and Rubini in 1826, Tamburini in 1831) whose special needs had to be high among the composer’s priorities, and that meant plenty of florid writing and ornamentation. It says much for the present singers that they can take on, and deal so successfully with, the vocal challenges of both operas.

The limpid purity of Annick Massis’s voice, it’s true, is better suited to the lighter manner of Francesca than to the heroic, death-defying Elvida, but she deals remarkably well with the technical difficulties of both. Bruce Ford does more than merely cope with the fearsome tessitura of the tenor roles, singing with elegance as the Duke in Francesca and adding robustness of tone and declamation for the Castilian warrior of Elvida. Pietro Spagnoli is the interesting baritone, probably a bit high for the King and not quite sonorous enough for the Moor, but well-defined and skillful in his fioritura. And the fourth in the quartet is Jennifer Larmore, a distinguished member of the casts who has also the distinction of playing the one ‘real’ character in Elvida, the dutiful son who opposes his father, and the sincere lover who renounces his beloved. Antonello Allemandi conducts effectively, the LPO play splendidly, and all the elements are well balanced by producer and engineers.