Bellini's Adelson e Salvini, Barbican Hall

Bellini is best known for his stirring opera Norma, but this earlier opera, Adelson e Salvini, was such a hit at its first performance in 1825, when the composer was still studying in Naples, that was it was repeated every Sunday for a year. Opera Rara, the company that unearths unjustly forgotten works such as this, often to great acclaim, give a single performance of Adelson e Salvini, but is also recording it. The story is based on the novellas of Baculard d’Arnaud, Les Épreuves du sentiment, but its inspiration was not only literary: Bellini is thought to have put everything into his composition in order to impress the parents of a singer with whom he had fallen in love. Adelson e Salvini depicts a classic love triangle: Salvini is an Italian painter who, visiting his patron Lord Adelson, falls in love with his benefactor's fiancée, Nelly. Italian mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona sings Nelly, with Sicilian-born tenor Enea Scala as Salvini, Bologna-born baritone Simone Alberghini as Lord Adelson, and the rising British mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge as Fanny. Soloists, choir and the BBC Symphony Orchestra are conducted by Daniele Rustioni