[ Naxos / 2 CD ]
Release Date: Friday 25 June 2021
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
During the 1813-14 carnival season in Naples, Simon Mayr wrote a much-admired opera semiseria called Elena. The post-revolutionary Napoleonic era saw great enthusiasm for the rescue opera genre and Elena is a perfect example, in which a complex plot, based on French models, sees an innocent falsely accused of a capital offence. Mayr's subtle accommodation of Neapolitan opera and Viennese Classicism ensures a series of choruses and recitatives that drive the action forward, punctuated with arias, romances, ensembles, lyric richness and moments of witty buffo colour.