For an opera that was not revived after its initial performances until the 1970s, Mitridate has done surprisingly well on record. Christophe Rousset conducted an excellent, starrily cast performance for Decca (5/99); more recently, David Vickers has praised recordings by Adám Fischer (Dacapo, 6/10) and Ian Page (Signum, 11/14). This new version – a studio recording, something of a rarity these days – deserves an honoured place alongside its predecessors.

Mozart was commissioned to write an opera for the Carnival season in Milan. The premiere was on December 26, 1770; it was only in July that he learnt that his suggestion of a text by Metastasio had been ignored and he was to set a libretto already furnished for the composer Gasparini, whose opera had been performed in Turin three years earlier. The Mozarts, father and son, reached Milan in October, but Wolfgang had to wait for the singers to arrive in November before he could get down to composing the tailor-made arias. There was intrigue and offstage drama; the singer of the title-role, Guglielmo d’Ettore, demanded four rewrites of his first aria. The first night, which lasted for six hours including extraneous ballet, was a triumph, and the opera ran for 22 performances. Mozart was a month short of his 15th birthday.

The libretto was based on an Italian translation of Racine’s tragedy Mithridate. King Mithridates – a historical character – returns from a defeat by the Romans under Pompey. He suspects, correctly, that his two sons are in love with his betrothed, Aspasia. All three are threatened with execution. Aspasia does indeed return Sifare’s love; Farnace has been dealing treacherously with Rome, represented by the tribune Marzio, but a change of heart leads to his setting fire to the Roman fleet. Mitridate, mortally wounded, gives Aspasia to Sifare, while Farnace marries the Parthian princess Ismene, as he was supposed to from the start.

The opera is laid out on an expansive scale, with much recitative (mostly secco, sensibly abridged here, but including half a dozen accompagnato). Some of the arias are in a foreshortened da capo form, which speeds things up (a relative term, though); others alternate slow and fast sections. The virtuoso writing is an indication of the quality of Mozart’s cast.

That presumed quality is made manifest in this recording. As Aspasia, Julie Fuchs gets off to a cracking start as she runs up and down the scale in the bright C major of ‘Al destin’. If her G minor aria ‘Nel sen mi palpita’ could show more of the prescribed agitation, she sustains the long lines of ‘Pallid’ombre’ very well: this is a Gluckian scene where Aspasia addresses the shades of the Underworld. Sabine Devieilhe is well suited to the part of Ismene. Her first aria, ‘In faccia all’oggetto’, is given in Mozart’s earlier version, the triplets in the ‘A’ section fluently done. Her Act 3 aria, ‘Tu sai per chi m’accese’ is omitted, unaccountably replaced by ‘So quanto a te dispiace’ from Act 2, Devieilhe sounding positively birdlike in the fioriture.

The parts of the brothers – half-brothers, actually – were written for soprano and alto castratos respectively. Elsa Dreisig is magnificent as Sifare. Her opening aria isn’t quite as exciting as on the Rousset recording, partly because Cecilia Bartoli is supported there by splendidly prominent B flat alto horns. Dreisig too loses an aria, ‘Parto: Nel gran cimento’; why? Sifare’s farewell to Aspasia, ‘Lungi da te’, is sung with delicate regret in perfect accord with László Szlávik’s impeccable horn obbligato. The C minor ‘Se il rigor’, which looks back to Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and forwards to Mozart’s own Idomeneo, is suitably tense. Then there’s the duet with Aspasia – the only ensemble till the final brief chorus – where Fuchs and Dreisig are brilliant as they chase each other in an ‘Anything you can do’ kind of way.

Farnace is sung by Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian. His staccato phrasing of the long melisma on ‘cederà’ in his first aria sounds studied, almost precious, and his tone in general is only just on the right side of hooty. But all can be forgiven for the gentle, long-breathed line that he spins in Farnace’s aria of repentance, ‘Già dagli occhi’. The Arbate (another castrato role) and Marzio acquit themselves well in their respective solo spots.

Mitridate is granted all five of his arias. They are, by and large, straightforward, even conventional. It’s only in his sole accompanied recitative, ‘Respira alfin’, that Mozart shows us the king’s introspective side. As on the DVD production conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm (Erato, 7/17), the part is assigned to Michael Spyres, whose command of the role is absolute. After the opening ‘Se di lauri’, most of Mitridate’s music is fast. Spyres sings with vigour, pinning you to your seat with the heroic ring of his upper register. When the king is less frenetic, in the adagio section of ‘Tu, che fedel’, he seizes the opportunity of phrasing with beauty and grace. When it comes to the frequent wide leaps – evidently a speciality of the exigent Cavaliere d’Ettore, and parodied later by Mozart in Così fan tutte – Spyres’s ability to negotiate them without a gear-change is a thing of wonder. Only once does good taste take a holiday: a grotesque cadenza in ‘Già di pietà’, where the singer descends two and a half octaves from top D to bottom G. Just because you can, as they say, doesn’t mean you should.

Right from the powerful opening to the Overture, you know that you are in good hands. Les Musiciens du Louvre play nobly for their conductor. Marc Minkowski’s tendency to interpret gentle, leaning appoggiaturas as acciaccaturas gives an unwontedly jerky effect to some of the phrases. Otherwise, no complaints. The omission of two arias is regrettable; the Ian Page recording (which I haven’t heard) includes an extra disc of earlier versions of the arias, which might tip the balance for some readers. But this is a fine account.