Here is a CD reissue of a little known LP recording (never generally obtainable in the UK) that should gladden the hearts of all Rossinians. Though it has been generally neglected by the gramophone, La pietra del paragone was one of Rossini's first smash-hits. It was written for La Scala, Milan in the autumn of 1812 and received 53 performances: an extraordinary run which brought Rossini instant fame and exemption from military service (a useful concession in 1812). From now on he could count himself a maestro di cartello, a composer whose name alone guarantees a public.
The libretto, concocted by one of La Scala's resident writers Luigi Romanelli, is cornucopian, filling out a substantial romantic comedy with sharply etched portraits of a diverting array of social and literary gadflys. Dramatically, it suffers from some otiose manoeuverings of plot; and Rossini added to the problems by complying with his prima donna's desire to show off her voice, and her legs, by bringing her into the denouement dressed as a Captain of the Hussars. Interestingly, the romantic lead is a bass, Count Asdrubale, a role originally written for the great Filippo Galli. It is a serious role with comic overtones; all Milan was mimicking the word ''Sigillara''—the order ''let the seals be affixed!'' that Asdrubale repeats over and over again in the scene in which he appears in Turkish garb and affects to take over his own possessions.
The name Newell Jenkins may not be all that familiar to British audiences. His Clarion Music Society is an American initiative that was founded in the mid-1950s with the intention of reviving and promoting forgotten music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. La pietra del paragone, recorded in New York in 1971, takes them a little way across a later frontier but the performance reflects many of those things that are commendable in the Clarion tradition—responsible scholarship, spruce and musicianly playing and conducting, and singing that is at worst adequate, at best memorable. Vanguard's Asdrubale, the distinguished baritone John Reardon, isn't a born Rossinian, but he gets by, supplementing a limited coloratura technique with a strong feel for the drama of the moment. Beverly Wolff's Clarice, sweet-toned and assured, comes into the latter category. Nor will it have escaped the notice of his many admirers that Jose Carreras is here, at the very start of his career, making his mark in the exquisite forest scene that begins Act 2. A strong cast of comprimarios includes Justino Diaz who as the poet Pacuvio has the popular nonsense aria ''Ombretta sdegnosa''. Diaz is an old Pietra hand. He was later to sing the role of Asdrubale in the production Milan's La Piccola Scala brought to the Edinburgh Festival in 1982.
In sum, an important set that comes up especially well in the immaculately packaged and presented new CD transfers. The 1992 bicentenary has brought few more agreeable additions to the list of Rossini operas currently available on record.'