You might wonder why an obscure opera buffa by Domenico Scarlatti’s nephew Giuseppe has made it to a slick new production and DVD. The answer, of course, lies in the venue, the gorgeous restored Baroque theatre at Cˇesk≥ Krumlov, once the summer home of the Schwarzenberg princes. But if this release seems to serve primarily as a classy advert for the building, only reopened in 1997 and not yet as famous as its Swedish counterpart at Drottningholm, there is nothing wrong with that when things are carried out to the high standards we see here.

That the theatre is the real star of the production is emphasised by the fact that the filming cuts in shots of breeches-clad stage crew winding capstans, pulling ropes and pushing up trapdoors, and that the Overture is heard over artfully combined 18th- and 21st-century-style cast preparations. The stage business is more wholeheartedly 18th-century, however, from the handsome costumes and sets (including those ingenious perspective-giving wing flats capable of transforming a scene in seconds) to the bewigged, candlelit period orchestra in the pit and conductor’s rolled-paper baton. The cast’s gestures and moves are of the kind standard in most modern-day buffa productions – it is hard to picture Vespetta simulating sex in front of the original Schwarzenbergs, and Count Orazio’s bumblings seem to owe a little to Oliver Hardy – but in truth nothing more seems necessary here than to sing and act with skill and wit, which the four Czech singers all manage very well.

The opera itself is an appropriate choice, commissioned as it was to celebrate a wedding and apparently premiered in 1768 in this very theatre (though The New Grove claims Vienna’s Burgtheater). A thoroughly competent and lively Neapolitan-style buffa piece, it sees a noble couple and their two servants learning a few home truths about the nature of jealousy from a series of break-ups, reconciliations and the odd bit of cross-dressing. The libretto by the talented Marco Coltellini is firm and smart, and the music by a composer of over 30 serious and comic operas follows its moods skilfully, with some clever gags along the way (such as Orazio trying to read parts of a letter that has been torn down the middle while the violins provide the ‘dot-dot-dots’). The orchestral playing and conducting are neat and tidy, and there is a 55-minute documentary on the theatre to boot.