Donizetti abandoned work on Le duc d’Albe when the director of the Paris Opéra, Léon Pillet, objected that there would be no leading role for his mistress, Rosine Stoltz. Instead, the composer turned to Eugène Scribe and they quickly revised the libretto of the recently abandoned L’ange de Nisida, the subject of which was … the king’s mistress! One hopes Pillet enjoyed a sense of irony.

Set in 14th-century Castile, La favorite follows the plight of Fernand, who abandons taking holy orders to pursue the beautiful but mysterious Léonor, who turns out to be the mistress of King Alphonse XI. The opera was premiered in December 1840 – with La Stoltz as Léonor – and has enjoyed sporadic success, not least in its Italian version (La favorita). Stagings now, even in Italy, favour the French original, as in the case of this one from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a co production with Barcelona’s Liceu and Madrid’s Teatro Real.

One wonders what sort of budget the Argentinian actor and director Ariel García Valdés had to work with, for his period production is minimalist in the extreme. Jean-Pierre Vergier’s set is dominated by a giant rock which doubles as the monastery of Santiago de Compostela and the island of Leon, where Fernand has an assignation with Léonor. Costumes are unfeasibly shiny and look cheap. Valdés’s direction is pretty static, betraying a lack of experience staging opera, but there are some reliable vocal performances to enjoy. Mezzo Veronica Simeoni copes well with her key aria and Celso Albelo has a lovely, pliant tone as Fernand. Mattia Olivieri is a youthful Alphonse, without quite managing the long lines in ‘Pour tant d’amour’. The Maggio Musicale’s new music director, Fabio Luisi, gives a lucid account of Donizetti’s lyrical score.

It’s unfortunate that Dynamic’s release faces stiff recent competition. Vincent Boussard’s Toulouse production (Opus Arte), another economical staging but with Christian Lacroix’s stylish costumes, has Ludovic Tézier as a suitably aristocratic Alphonse. From the Bavarian State Opera (DG), Amélie Niermeyer updates the action and draws terrific dramatic performances from Elīna Garanča, Matthew Polenzani and Mariusz Kwiecień. Both are preferable to Florence’s pedestrian production.