Bernd Loebe’s Frankfurt company and their music director Sebastian Weigle have enriched the Wagner discography this past year with new performances of the three early operas. As used to be the case with Verdi on record, no Rienzi (save the still officially unissued nor properly remastered Holy Grail of Sir Edward Downes’s 1976 radio performance) is complete – and all are cut differently. The present performance follows one of several bad traditions – a ‘musical arrangement’ is credited – by making not-so-short snips in Acts 1, 2 (the ‘Rape of Lucretia’ ballet reduced to soundbites) and 4, and massacring Act 3: we get the aftermath of Rienzi’s second (bloodthirsty) victory over nobles Colonna and Orsini but none of the intriguingly forward-looking choral writing that limns the actual battle.

Frankfurt has been an important staging post in the move towards more heroic roles of Anglo-German tenor Peter Bronder. This Rienzi follows a successful Palestrina (9/12). If Bronder lacks the last ounce of heroic razzmatazz with which, say, René Kollo was able to invest this role (for EMI and Orfeo), there is not a note or tone in this impressive reading which is not convincingly struck. His colleagues are in like form, especially Mahnke’s Adriano (surely the beau rôle of this piece), Struckmann’s Colonna and Beau Gibson as the side-switching bourgeois Baroncelli.

Taken down from two concerts last May, this is the most exciting Rienzi we have yet on disc (although the Steinberg Toulouse DVD – Opus Arte, 11/13 – is potently conducted too). Weigle’s Overture, alternately lithe, light and pacy or lingering without sentiment, flags up that his direction of the piece is much more in the style of the 1830s/’40s and of the two earlier operas he has led than the overblown Solti or the circus fun of Tennstedt’s swinging marches. Recording quality is excellent. A big recommendation – but, please, the Downes in proper sound, someone?