Mendelssohn thought him the greatest conductor of his day, and Schumann and Spohr enthused over his operas. Posterity, however, was not particularly kind to Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner (1791-1856), whose music went largely unheard for more than a century after his death until the Rossini in Wildbad festival revived his Il vespro siciliano in 2015. Written along Meyerbeerian lines, it was first performed in 1843 in Stuttgart, where Lindpaintner served as Kapellmeister for most of his working life, and forms a timely reminder of the impact of French grand opéra on German composers in the first half of the 19th century: Wagner was by no means alone in attempting to conquer Meyerbeerian territory with Rienzi.

The subject is the 1282 Sicilian uprising against French rule, familiar from Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes, with which Lindpaintner’s opera also shares the character of the revolutionary leader Procida, similarly cast as a bass. The plot, however, primarily concerns Count Fondi, who has secretly married Eleonora, the intended bride of king Charles (Carlo) of Anjou, to the fury both of the latter and of Alphonse Drouet, a French nobleman obsessed with Fondi’s destruction. There are Shakespearean overtones in the characterisation of Carlo, who has murdered his way Macbeth-like to power, while Iago lurks behind both Drouet’s malign scheming and his surface charm. A subplot, meanwhile, dealing with the affair between Fondi’s page Albino and Eleonora’s maid Aurelia weaves its way in and out of the main narrative.

Though no masterpiece, the opera is by no means negligible. The score operates on two stylistic levels, with bravura showpieces for the aristocratic protagonists and strophic ballads for their servants, though Aurelia, who has designs on Drouet above her station, tellingly inhabits both worlds. Fondi and Drouet, both tenors, square off like a pair of divos from one of Rossini’s opere serie, which Lindpaintner much admired. A quartet of Sicilian noblemen, pre empting the Knights in Lohengrin, sing in attractive close harmony throughout, and feature in the striking first-act concertato for male voices only. There’s a tremendous double chorus at the start of Act 2, meanwhile, during which Procida is seen stirring up trouble by setting faction against faction.

The recording impresses, too, though it takes a while to get into its stride. Conductor Federico Longo dawdles a bit in the first act but quickens both pace and momentum later on when the plots and counterplots begin and Fondi’s life starts to unravel. The best performances come from Matija Meic´’s guilt-ridden Carlo and César Arrieta’s insidiously elegant Drouet. Danilo Formaggia occasionally finds Fondi’s coloratura tricky, but Silvia Dalla Benetta makes a stylish Eleonora and Dario Russo is very commanding as Procida. Choral singing and playing are consistently strong, though the work needs a slightly larger body of strings than we have here. The live recording, admirably clear, captures a fair bit too much extraneous rustling as the players turn their music, which is one drawback. The other is the libretto, which you have to download from the Naxos site and comes in Italian only: we really could do with a translation.