‘Never again will I recapture such verve and vitality,’ wrote Berlioz some 18 years after the première of Benvenuto Cellini. It is not possible here to do more than summarise all his troubles with it. Following rejection of the libretto by the Opéra-Comique, he took a revised and enlarged score to the Opéra in 1838: this is the version now known, from Hugh Macdonald’s brilliant work for the New Berlioz Edition, as ‘Paris 1’. After a disastrous opening, Berlioz made substantial cuts and revisions to the orchestral and vocal parts, depositing the new score with the Opéra (‘Paris 2’).

Later, as Kapellmeister in Weimar, Liszt came to the rescue and staged a heavily revised and shortened version in 1852 (‘Weimar’). It was not an end to the problems about how to present this astonishing work, which in its original version has brilliance and originality that would certainly have taken aback most of Berlioz’s contemporaries, let alone the diehards of the Paris opera houses. The attempt by ‘des anglais passionnés’ to reconstruct the original opéra comique concept, with spoken dialogue, gets short shrift from Christian Wasselin in his French booklet-note for the new recording; but, drawing on both ‘Paris’ and ‘Weimar’, that was the basis of the Covent Garden performances of the 1960s, and of what John Nelson calls Colin Davis’s ‘ground-breaking recording’ of 1972 (Philips, 3/73 – nla). Thanks to the NBE, almost half an hour’s music can now be added to what was available to Davis, and Nelson’s version is a fully sung score based on ‘Paris 1’.It is a splendid achievement. To follow all the complexities of the versions set out in the NBE score requires quick-wittedness, but this is not necessary in order to respond with new astonishment to the music’s youthful genius: Macdonald’s English introduction is an exemplary guide, and David Cairns’s original translation for the Davis recording is augmented by Lisa Hobbs, alongside the French. Each of the singers responds with a quick understanding to the unexpected, eloquent contours of the recitatives, none more so than Gregory Kunde. He can phrase Cellini’s wistful aria longing for a shepherd’s simple life elegantly, but also prove an ardent suitor for Teresa, and challenge his adversaries with an heroic, defiant brio that even takes in a top F.

Patrizia Ciofi can sound a little timid for him, and for Teresa’s light vivacity, though she sings fluently and gracefully, especially in the ‘Paris 1’ aria, ‘Ah, que l’amour’. Jean-François Lapointe characterises the devious Fieramosca wittily, and joins the the other two cleverly in the brilliant tour de force of their trio: Nelson does not spare anyone the high speeds that Berlioz is known to have wanted. There is a nice, high-spirited performance of Ascanio from Joyce Di Donato that includes witty imitations of the men, and Laurent Naouri struts his hour upon the stage vigorously as Teresa’s father Balducci.

Orchestrally, Berlioz makes reckless demands. They are brilliantly answered, not only with individual playing (which includes a jovial showing by the ophicleide in the ‘Pierrot’ cavatine) but in the many-layered invention of the score. The recording engineers have done extraordinarily well in conveying so much detail even when matters are hurtling full tilt in the Roman Carnival scene and in the final casting of the Perseus. John Nelson steers it all with a sure hand and total conviction, and with delight. Here indeed is the ‘verve and vitality’ Berlioz always believed he had found.