Of the many attractions here not the least is the quality of the singing. Jennifer Larmore, Rebecca Evans and Paul Nilon are cast in roles which demand a high degree of virtuosity, and the pre-conditions (such as good tone, even production and an expressive handling of language) are taken for granted. All are excellent, Larmore with her forthright style well suited to this confrontational heroine, Nilon with a sympathetic timbre which can ring out brightly when needed, Evans in the unexpected role of Warrior King, summoning up reserves of power and authority. Mirco Palazzi is a dignified Scipione, and no doubt Lucy Crowe and Colin Lee would be well up to the general level, which makes it all the more regrettable that we hear so little of them.

But of course in a compilation of selected excerpts some painful choices may have to be made, and Jeremy Commons makes clear in his admirable introductory essay that there was no lack of eligible material. Indeed, he extends that to the whole body of Paer's work. He has previously been represented in Opera Rara's Hundred Years of Italian Opera anthologies, but Sofonisba is the first of his output of more than 60 stage works to be sampled at greater length. The selection certainly whets the appetite for more. Paer (1771-1839) has been placed rather unappealingly as a composer “of the interregnum between Cimarosa and Rossini” (Stendhal) and as one for whom “symmetry of phrase and balance of voices are of supreme importance” (Commons). But one sits up in the opening bars and is kept attentive till the last. The happy ending imposed by ruling conventions limits the work's success, but Opera Rara's advocacy of a neglected composer proves once again to be well founded.