La pietra del paragone was one of Rossini’s earliest smash-hits. First heard at La Scala, Milan in the autumn of 1812, it received 53 performances, an extraordinary run that allowed him exemption from military service and the right to count himself a maestro di cartello, a composer whose name alone guarantees a public. The libretto is a cornucopian affair in which a generously proportioned romantic comedy is filled out with sharply etched portraits of a diverting array of social gadflies. Curiously, the romantic lead, Count Asdrubale, is a bass, a serious role with comic overtones written for one of Rossini’s favourite singers, Filippo Galli. All Milan was using the word ‘Sigillara’ – the order ‘Let the seals be affixed!’ – that Asdrubale repeats over and over again in the Act 1 finale where he appears disguised as Turk and affects to confiscate his own possessions.

A fine complete recording of the opera was made in New York in 1971. Conducted by Newell Jenkins, it featured Beverly Wolff as Clarice, the young José Carreras as her would-be lover Giocondo and Justino Diaz as the poet Pacuvio who has the famous nonsense song ‘Ombretta sdegnosa del Missipipì’. It wasn’t generally available in the UK on LP but appeared on CD in 1992 (Vanguard, 12/92 – nla). The following year an almost equally attractive set appeared on Nuova Era, recorded live during performance at Modena’s Teatro Comunale under the direction of that much-loved Rossini baritone Claudio Desderi. The set is still listed but in terms of ease of availability the new Naxos set is poised to take pride of place in the catalogues.

Alas, this is not good news for anyone who loves La pietra del paragone. Naxos has had some success with Rossini, including a brilliantly produced studio recording of Il barbiere di Siviglia (3/94) and the first recording of the early two-act comedy L’equivoco stravagante (9/02) – necessary listening for anyone who is going to see the opera’s first UK staging at Garsington this summer. By contrast, this live 2001 recording of La pietra del paragone is pretty poor: boorishly conducted and not very well played; variably, often clumsily, sung (the Count is a particular problem); noisily staged; and only tolerably well recorded. (Having principals off-mic, however infrequently, is inexcusable in an era when, with care, the accurate recording of live stage performances is readily achievable.)

Since it would be unfair to tar everyone with the same brush, I should say that Agata Bienkowska is a sympathetic Clarice who copes expertly with the showpiece finale written for Maria Marcolini, whose fondness for military uniforms and handsome white chargers Rossini was only too happy to indulge. Gioacchino Zarrelli brings off the ‘Missipipì’ song effectively enough and Anke Herrmann’s dispatches Donna Fulvia’s Act 2 aria with a certain panache.

Thanks in part to Bienkowska’s contribution, Act 2 goes much better than Act 1 – the ensemble, as it were, warming to its task – though the limitations remain, as an ungainly account of the celebrated Trio all too readily confirms.