Paderewski was a far more substantial composer than his piano-showcase pieces would suggest, as proved by his first and only opera, Manru (1901), which has every compositional resource needed for a grand, compelling stage work. Over-familiar 19th-century operatic tropes (forbidden love, magic potions) and near-quotations from other masterpieces (Carmen, Die Walküre, Siegfried) suggest Manru is a practice opera. The libretto has so little unity that it feels like three one-act operas. Nonetheless, Manru emerges with its own kind of heat, more on subsequent encounters than on a first hearing.

Based on the Józef Ignacy Kraszewski novel, the story of the Romany Manru and his divided loyalties between nomadic life and domesticity (with the shunned village girl who had his child) veers between the lyrical The Bartered Bride of 1870 and the more naturalistic rusticity of Janáček some 40 years later. Characters have effective soliloquies and much emotional texture with their shifting alliances and deep desires for a life that lies just out of reach. Vigorous folksy choruses are never just picturesque but have much dramatic purpose. Expansive violin solos represent Manru’s longing for his ethnic origins better than any well-crafted aria could hope to, though throughout the opera, Paderewski’s vocal lines have unfailing rhetorical conviction amid an orchestration packed with dramatically telling solos.

So rich is this opera that its three recordings of recent years meet the challenges with hugely varying success. This new CPO recording bills itself as the first in the original German, which perhaps prompts the cast to sing in an unflattering Wagnerian manner that turns longer scenes into heavy labour. Even with conductor Michael Wendeberg’s hard-driving tempos, any grandeur is absent amid the duelling vibratos and shrieked high notes of Romelia Lichtenstein as the village girl Ulana and Gabriella Guilfoil as her mother. In the title-role, tenor Thomas Mohr is vocally solid and dramatically alert, though his unvarnished timbre isn’t easy to hear over the long haul. The one truly pleasing voice is Franziska Krötenheerdt as Asa, the Romany woman who Manru loves enough to leave his marriage. The tinny-sounding blacksmith sound effects of Act 2 further sap the performance’s credibility.

But for those interested in more than a passing encounter with a work that deserves to be far more than a footnote in operatic history, the CPO set claims its place if for no other reason than the 100-page-plus booklet with extensive documentation and libretto translations, which are sorely lacking in the far better-performed set by Opera Nova Bydgoszcz Chorus and Orchestra on Dux, released in 2011. On the Dux set, voices are more lyrical and conductor Maciej Figas delves deep into details, though giving plenty of attention to atmospheric effects on the surface. Still, potentially confusing scenes that drift between public choral moments and private exchanges are only clarified in the high-quality video of yet another production with a charismatic, modern-dress cast headed by tenor Peter Berger. Though conductor Grzegorz Nowak gives a less detailed account of the orchestration, the DVD is still the version that’s most likely to make new friends for the piece. But the Dux set is the real thing – best appreciated with the insights from the video.