Premiered in March 1789, months before the storming of the Bastille, Grétry’s take on the Bluebeard tale, as told by Perrault, proved strong stuff for Parisians. ‘Such subjects ought not to be shown on stage’, thundered the Mercure de France, fazed by the intrusion of brutality (in the onstage murder of the evil Raoul) into the lightweight genre of opéra comique. To no avail. Part fairy-story, part rescue opera, Raoul Barbe-bleue survived regime changes in France and crossed borders. In his memoirs Wagner recalled how, after hearing the opera in Dresden as a five-year-old, he would march around the house in a paper hat singing Raoul’s air of vengeance ‘Perfide, tu l’as ouverte’.

As Grétry admitted himself, his prime gift was for simple, graceful melody, exemplified here in a pretty duet for two peasants and the mellifluous Act 1 solos and duet for the heroine Isaure and her lover (and later rescuer) Vergy. When the action hots up Grétry’s harmonically limited idiom can sometimes seem too tame for the situation. Yet as early critics picked up, there are scenes of real power, including Isaure’s long solo in Act 2 culminating in her horrified opening of the forbidden door and her agitated duet with Vergy (shades here of Gluck), and two tense trios, the second one pitting the despairing lovers against Raoul’s offstage threats.

The Trondheim production on which this recording is based stressed grotesque visual comedy, not least at the moment when Isaure discovers the decapitated corpses of Raoul’s wives. On disc the comedy is largely confined to the dialogues involving the comic valet Osman, gleefully camped up by Manuel Núñez Camelino. With a well-chosen, largely Francophone cast and trim playing from the Norwegian period band there is plenty of tension in the more dramatic numbers. Martin Wåhlberg has a sure feeling for pacing and makes the most of the score’s instrumental colours – say, the low, louring horns in the duet between Raoul and Osman or the glaring trumpets and piccolo in the battle music.

Both in song and spoken dialogue all the singers sound at ease in opéra comique. Chantal Santon-Jeffery is a radiant Isaure, shaping her music gracefully while mustering ample dramatic intensity in extremis. As Vergy, François Rougier fields an attractive high, light tenor and acts well with the voice. Matthieu Lécroart, a sonorous if slightly rough-toned bass, blusters formidably as Raoul; and the Spanish haute-contre Manuel Núñez Camelino, as Osman, shows himself a natural comedian, effectively milking his ‘foreignness’. The recording is well balanced and presentation first-rate, with libretto in French and English and an essay by David Le Marrec that makes an eloquent case for an opera that surprised Parisians with its ‘austere beauties’ and ‘sombre and savage character’.