Belisario – review

Donizetti blew hot and cold about his opera Belisario, first performed in Venice in 1836. Despite it being a success, he considered it inferior to its predecessor, Lucia di Lammermoor. Posterity has tended to agree with him, but Belisario is now undergoing a reassessment. Chelsea Opera Group's revival last year revealed its often striking force. This Opera Rara performance, with Mark Elder conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, was further confirmation of its scope and ambition.

The subject is drawn from Byzantine history, and the dramatic stakes are high. The general Belisario is blinded and exiled, when his wife Antonina falsely accuses him of treason. His only companion on his wanderings is his daughter Irene; comparisons with Lear and Cordelia, and Oedipus and Antigone, seem deliberate as well as inevitable. The score brings violence and grace into garish opposition. Antonina's lurching coloratura is juxtaposed with the tenderness of Belisario's scenes, not only with his daughter, but also with Alamiro, who turns out to be his long-lost son.

Elder delivered a performance of inexorable momentum and considerable power. The soloists were tremendous, though you could argue that the men were fractionally stronger than the women. Joyce El-Khoury's Antonina dispatched her arias with thrilling precision, but was at times waspish rather than monstrous. Camilla Roberts's Irene was short on innate nobility, though the lustre in her tone is remarkable. There was singing of extraordinary beauty and insight, however, from Nicola Alaimo's Belisario, while tenor Russell Thomas brought the house down as Alamiro.

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