The booklet for this release tells us that it is not only a world premiere recording but that La Rosinda has been revived on only one other occasion since the 17th century. Baroque opera enthusiasts should be circling, then, for this is a work in which Cavalli’s skills as an opera composer who can mix fluidity of text with just enough lyricism to make musical drama that is both compelling and attractive are clearly displayed.

The opera was composed and premiered in Venice in 1651, immediately preceding the better-known La Calisto, and was a collaboration with the same talented librettist, Giovanni Faustini. The story seems to be an original concoction, though its semi-comic mixture of magical manipulations, deluded lovers, enchanted palaces and auto-pilot chivalries could have come straight out of Ariosto. The warrior princess Rosinda and Clitofonte have mutually succumbed to a love potion, angering the latter’s lover, the sorceress Nerea; she sets her skills to breaking the pair up and eventually succeeds after a number of adventures, including a visit to the Underworld for extra support from Pluto and Proserpina. The story is filled out by some low comedy from the servants.

The performance was recorded live at the 2008 Vantaa Baroque Music Festival and suffers from some of the typically resulting problems (stage noises, erratic balance and bumpy edits) while benefiting from being given by a group with previous form in staged Cavalli. The Italian-speaking cast is not one of stars, and while not all are top-quality (far from it in one case), the overall dramatic spirit is strong, the words are delivered convincingly and idiomatically, and the continuo accompaniments and ensemble dances are intelligently scored and realised by Mike Fentross’s Dutch-based instrumentalists. The strongest all-round vocal performance comes from Emanuela Galli as the opera’s most interesting character, the Alcina-like Nerea, but Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli as Rosinda, Nicola Ebau in the triple role of Plutone, Thisandro (Rosinda’s ever-gallant lover) and the ageing sorcerer Meandro, and Fulvio Bettini as the comic valet Rudione also play their parts well, while Makoto Sakurada as Clitofonte has a beguiling tenor voice that I would pay to hear as Monteverdi’s Orfeo one day. In short, this is an account with all the urgency and variety required to realise this rare work as a drama.

The booklet is luxuriantly illustrated with Venetian artworks but the pastiche 17th-century notes and slipshod proofreading in the sung text will leave you scratching your head.