Here is a conundrum: we have the world- premiere recording of an opera, almost every number of which has been recorded before. Handel’s Alessandro Severo is a pasticcio – a term derived from Italian pastry-making, in which leftovers are rolled together into a new pie. Pushed to find a third opera for the 1738 London season, Handel lighted upon a libretto of murderous treachery in imperial Rome, originally written by Apostolo Zeno. Drawing exclusively on his own earlier music, he chose for it 19 numbers from the previous season’s operas – Arminio, Giustino and Berenice – and the rest from operas across a wide period from 1720 to 1736. The result may not be a masterpiece – for a start, it lacks a character of striking power and individuality such as an Alcina or a Giulio Cesare. What it does do is afford a good way of getting to know some worthwhile music in a different context.

Following on from highly praised recordings of another pasticcio, Oreste, and four more popular works, MDG’s Handel opera series takes another confident step forwards. Conductor George Petrou gives us more vigorous Handel, played by his Greek colleagues in the period-instrument Armonia Atenea with red-blooded energy and pounding rhythms. Soprano Marita Solberg sings with disarming beauty as the ostensibly innocent Salustia and Kristina Hammarström brings fiery determination to her mezzo nemesis, the wicked mother-in-law Giulia. In the castrato role of Alessandro Severo, the impressionable young emperor, Mary-Ellen Nesi manages to set a tone distinct from the rest of a well-chosen cast, none of whom lets the side down. The drawbacks are minor – the continuo in the recitatives is rather hyperactive and some of the vocal cadenzas are questionable in style – and so there is no reason not to welcome this first Alessandro Severo to the Handel canon.

As a bonus, the third disc contains another first recording in Don Crepuscolo by the early-19th-century Greek composer Niccolo Manzaro. At 30 minutes, it is a sort of Rossini one-man comic opera for bass solo, here the jocular Christophoros Stamboglis – an odd makeweight for Handel but not unpleasing.