Admirers of Lalo’s Le roi d’Ys must sometimes wonder what happened to Fiesque, his first and only other completed opera. They will recognise some of the music here, for when Fiesque came third in a competition and was denied performance, the disappointed Lalo ploughed what he thought were the best bits into later works, having already absorbed some early pieces into Fiesque. If that makes it sound rather a shambles, Lalo’s engaging idiom, fluent and tuneful if not of the highest distinction, and his sound dramatic instinct keep matters moving along enjoyably.

Based on Schiller, the plot concerns jealousies and conspiracies in 16th-century Genoa, with Fiesque, pursued by both the flighty Julie and his loyal wife Léonore, leaving the revolutionary Verrina so undecided as to where his political sympathies really lie as to murder him at curtain-fall. Dodging through the plot’s twists and turns is Hassan, a semi-comic assassin up for hire to the highest bidder. These ambiguities sometimes defeat Lalo’s powers of characterisation but he understands voices, and his orchestration is vivid and attractive, as well as expressive of the plot’s high spots and its dark undertones.

This concert premiere was recorded in Montpellier in July 2006 and is somewhat cut, but not fatally so. Fiesque himself has some splendid heroics, as well as lyrical love music; best of all is his dream aria in Act 2. Roberto Alagna brings this off effortlessly but in other places a little more effort in thinking the character through might not have come amiss. Perhaps he was put off by Angela Gheorghiu pulling out, deciding that the role of Léonore ‘no longer suited her voice’. Her substitute, Michelle Canniccioni, shows signs of nerves, allowing a grievous vibrato to trouble her line in the early scenes. She is no match for Béatrice Uria-Monzon, wittily flirtatious as Julie and relishing her Act 3 chanson, ‘Mon plaisir à moi’. Franck Ferrari gives a strong performance of Verrina and Jean-Sébastien Bou enjoys himself as the slippery Hassan. Alain Altinoglu conducts an engagingly vigorous performance, reasonably well recorded, certainly well enough to make it worth the attention of the curious collector.