Paisiello's two-act opera, Fedra was first performed at Naples in 1788 when the composer was at the height of his powers. His first Neapolitan period had lasted from 1766 to 1776, after which Paisiello became Maestro di capella to Catherine II at St Petersburg; but in 1784 he returned to Naples as court composer, holding various appointments both there and for a time in Paris as Napoleon's director of chapel music. Paisiello's star remained in the ascendant at Naples after Napoleon's brother installed himself as King of Naples, but when the deposed Ferdinand IV regained the throne in 1815 the composer fell into disgrace, lost most of his court appointments and died the following year.
Fedra, whose libretto is by Mario Salvioni, is the story of Hyppolitus and Aricia. Salvioni adapted this version from an earlier opera by Traetta, which in turn had been partly inspired by Rameau's and Pellegrin's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733). The spirit of Paisiello's opera, however, is a long way removed from Rameau's masterpiece and even further removed from Racine and ultimately Euripides. Indeed anyone deprived of a libretto and unfamiliar with the Italian language might be forgiven for not realizing it was a tragedy at all; not that the music is invariably light-hearted—some of the recitative, especially that which is accompanied, conveys a feeling of intensity, even, at times, foreboding but that it is predominantly so is undeniable.
This recording was made in 1958 and is digitally remastered for this CD issue. The sound is very much of its period but can hardly have seemed distinguished beside the best that was then available. Nevertheless, it is largely free from distortion and the singers are, by and large well balanced with the orchestra. The orchestral playing is unremarkable and at times astonishingly perfunctory; and, of course, compared with the faster moving conventions governing recitative in most performances of opera seria nowadays what we have here comes over as too ponderous. The standard of singing is fairly even, though Tommaso Frascati as Mercury is often painfully sharp; and Angelo Questo gives a predominatly lively account of Paisiello's music. The encounter between Theseus and Pluto in Hades towards the end of Act I is one of the high spots of the score, with effective orchestration and vocal contours. Alas, the chorus do not rise to the occasion and their contribution to the Underworld scenes sounds as if it is taking place over a good bowl of spaghetti!
To sum up, this is an issue more for the insatiable opera enthusiast or the deeply curious than for connoisseurs of hi-fi, but the music is often engaging and until such a time as a more stylish recording is made this may well fill a lacuna in an opera-lover's library or that of the Paisiello specialist. There is a synopsis in English but the full libretto is given in Italian only and there are some printing errors.'