Mercadante: Orazi e Curiazi

 Opera 23

Mercadante: Orazi e Curiazi

Soloists

Philharmonia Orchestra

David Parry

Mercadante didn’t feature in last year’s 365 new pieces project. That’s quite a surprise looking back because he is a good composer and thanks to various compilations on the Opera Rara label I have head quite a few extracts from his opera. I did also listen to his version of La Vestale a few years ago.

I thought that this was a splendid opera. Verdi is the obvious point of comparison and I think that Mercadante comes out of the comparison pretty well. He doesn’t have the melodic gift of Verdi and neither does he have the same mastery of concision. But on its own terms it works very well.  Some of it is pure ‘blood and thunder’ but that is all part of the appeal and Mercadante certainly whips up some impressive energy. He is also a very innovative orchestrator - the score has all sorts of interesting touches. I genuinely think that if this was a Verdi opera it would be performed with some regularity. As it is one has to be grateful to Opera Rara for all its efforts in promoting Mercadante as an important figure in 19th century Italian opera.