Only a matter of months after the release of a new CD recording of Strauss’s second opera (CPO’s fine Munich set under Ulf Schirmer – 5/15) comes this DVD, an audio-visual record of the only fully staged production of Feuersnot to have taken place in the composer’s anniversary year (Dresden went halfway, with a semi-staging in the courtyard of the Residenz). The packaging proclaims ‘world premiere recording’, which obviously isn’t quite right, but it’s certainly the first filmed version and therefore fills a very important gap in the catalogue. And the fact that it hails from the Teatro Massimo in Parlermo says a lot about that theatre’s admirable sense of adventure.

I only wish I could be a little more enthusiastic about the performance itself, the mood for which is set by drawn-out faffing on the stage from before the orchestra even take their places. Dietrich Henschel’s Kunrad is established in this dumb show as a composer – this ‘magician’ is a thinly veiled portrait of Strauss – dropping sheets of manuscript paper into the pit, while a vast troop of actors parade around on the stage. The music starts only after a full 10 minutes of this, but the actors remain, gurning, flouncing and miming distractingly throughout. They make this olde-worlde Munich square resemble the 21st-century Covent Garden piazza, distract focus from the principals (there’s a tendency for narratives to be exaggeratedly enacted by the actors and dancers) and obscure Carmine Maringola’s essentially attractive set – an advent calendar-like facade more redolent, admittedly, of Sicily than Bavaria.

There are moments when Emma Dante’s direction unnecessarily confuses the action, too: Diemut comes down from her room upon Kunrad’s arrival there, having to make her own ascent to rejoin him; the townsfolk have all dissipated (to make way for dancers) by the time the pair emerge triumphantly from their love scene, so there’s no climactic cheer from them. The excessive busyness of it all, meanwhile, seems out of tune with the relaxed joviality of much of the music – some frantic dancing to the pre-Rosenkavalier waltzes is especially jarring.

Gabriele Ferro’s conducting is perfectly decent, while there’s lively work from the children’s chorus especially, giving lie to the idea that their part is too difficult to be practicable. It’s difficult to warm to Henschel’s dry-voiced and charmless Kunrad, however. The German baritone gets through the role effortfully, projecting more anger than ardency in his manner – listen to Bernd Weikl on the Fricke recording (Acanta, 1/85) for something a great deal sunnier, or even Markus Eiche on the CPO set. Nicola Beller Carbone is no match for Simone Schneider on the latter, either, her singing rather raw, though undeniably powerful. The extended cast does a decent job, but with varying levels of German.

With so much going on all the time, Tiziano Mancini’s video direction inevitably has to jump about a bit, lest we miss anything – to tiring effect. It’s useful to have this release, then, but it could have done a lot more to help the cause of this important work.