Filmed at the 2019 Donizetti Festival in Bergamo, this new Lucrezia Borgia is a compelling if uneven affair, handsomely conducted by Riccardo Frizza, variably sung (albeit with some superb individual performances), and hampered in places by Andrea Bernard’s production, which on occasion swamps insight beneath symbolism.

Bernard is strong in capturing the decadent atmosphere in which the drama plays itself out. The oppressive designs by Alberto Beltrame (sets) and Elena Beccaro are predominantly black, relieved by flashes of white, gold and yellow. Appropriately enough for a work dependent on Oedipal confusion between the maternal and the erotic, Bernard prises open its sexual undertow, suggesting that Xabier Anduaga’s Gennaro is the lover of Varduhi Abrahamyan’s Orsini as well as attracted to the unknown woman (Carmela Remigio’s Lucrezia), whom he believes to be stalking him. Marko Mimica’s Alfonso, meanwhile, is a sadist, who delights in both assaulting his wife and terrorising his servants.

Sometimes, however, things become awkward. That Lucrezia is Gennaro’s mother is established in a dumb show at the outset, where we see her baby being stolen from its cradle, which unfortunately undermines the ambiguities and ironies with which Donizetti presents the successive revelations of Lucrezia’s identity. The cradle, meanwhile, remains on stage throughout, though it is eventually broken in a moment of drunken violence by Orsini’s rowdy cronies. Gennaro defaces the ‘BORGIA’ inscription on the palace wall in Ferrara by urinating on it – a clever idea and nicely transgressive – though Bernard’s decision to bring the usually unseen Princess Negroni on stage as a table dancer at her own banquet is arguably less successful. The presence of a Christ-like death figure in a loin cloth, who weaves his way among the characters, daubing the faces of Alfonso and Lucrezia’s victims with blood, is an unnecessary distraction.

Musically, there is much to admire. Frizza’s conducting has real dramatic sweep. There’s beautiful, incisive playing from his young orchestra (the brass are outstanding) and some terrific choral singing. The cast is by and large strong, though the men are better than the women. Remigio, fiercely dramatic, keeps us the right side of empathy throughout, though her voice can turn uncomfortably shrill in its upper registers. Abrahamyan takes a while to get into her stride: ‘Nella fatal di Rimini’ is a bit plummy, the voice not quite warmed up, but by the time she reaches the famous Brindisi, the gleam at the top and her warm lower registers prove beguiling. Mimica, his tone dark and bittersweet like treacle, exudes real malign charisma as Alfonso. The outstanding performance, though, comes from Anduaga, a wonderful bel canto tenor on this showing, his voice warm and supple, his breath control and dynamic shading immaculate: there are some astonishing high pianissimos towards the close, as Gennaro’s life ebbs away. He’s a superb actor, too, and there’s real dramatic fire in his scenes with Remigio. As a whole, the set arouses mixed feelings, but he, unquestionably, makes it worthwhile.