Turandot and Isabeau. Puccini’s last opera comes to mind frequently while listening to Mascagni’s 10th. In a Judgement-Day scenario, where the one is taken and the other left, no doubt it is Isabeau that would have to be dumped. All the same I’m very glad to have heard it complete at last.

Record collectors may have heard excerpts from the falconer’s role recorded by the Sardinian tenor Bernardo de Muro, or Gigli or Cura; occasionally the long Intermezzo is played. Not much else has survived beyond the awareness that this is Mascagni’s ‘Lady Godiva’ opera, with Folco as a visionary, non-voyeuristic Peeping Tom. Illica’s leggenda drammatica in turn evokes a storybook medievalism which is represented in the musical score by subtle colouring rather than overt pastiche.

The quality of the score and its relation to the requirements of dramatic effectiveness are of course the essential considerations, and here I can only gesture towards a kind of torment in the pleasure of listening (it so repeatedly comes near to its own fulfilment). The librettist’s impulsion towards violence and a love-death for his finale is repellent, but my overall impression is of a warmly felt, genuinely creative composition.

The performance is fine, and the recorded sound is vivid despite a balance which somewhat favours the voices. The singers do well, though, ironically, the only ‘big’ name comes last in the cast-list, Jard van Nes. Adriaan van Limpt, the Folco, had a career in The Netherlands that brought him (for instance) to sing with Sutherland in Norma; he has a good, firm voice with some ring to it and suitable fervour in the utterance. Lynn Strow-Piccolo was herself a Norma, and impresses here in the title-role as having the purity of voice for the character and a feeling for the Italian style of Mascagni’s period. The Netherlands Radio Choir would not be mistaken for an Italian opera-house chorus, but that is no criticism. They, and the orchestra, under Kees Bakels’s judicious direction, give an excellent account of themselves and of Mascagni’s hauntingly distinctive, second-rate score.