I puritani – Vincenzo Bellini’s final opera before his death at the age of 33 – is one of the greatest jewels of the bel canto repertoire. Despite the composer’s misgivings over the quality of Carlo Pepoli’s libretto, its premiere on 25 January 1835 at Paris’s Théâtre-Italien was nothing short of sensational, and its leading soloists (Giulia Grisi, Giovanni Basttista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache) were remembered ever after as the ‘Puritani quartet’. During the bel canto revival of the mid-20th century, recordings starring Callas, Sutherland and Caballé earned critical and popular acclaim. However, although several productions have made their way onto DVD/Blu-ray in recent years, new audio recordings have been scarce. Now EuroArts comes to the rescue, with a splendid new account recorded under studio conditions in Dresden in December 2023, under the direction of a conductor thoroughly versed in the Italianate tradition, Riccardo Frizza.

The opera’s tale of doomed love rescued at the last minute, set amid the febrile latter stages of the English Civil War, colours its music with martial rhythms, a certain puritanical directness, but also with vivid orchestral and vocal colours, seamless melody, stratospherically demanding vocal lines for the central lovers, and an important role for the chorus. Frizza directs a briskly-paced account of the score, but nevertheless allows plenty of space for the various ensembles and reflective solo numbers to make their mark. The orchestral introduction features outstanding horn playing from the Dresdner Philharmonie, calling to mind the qualities of their more famous colleagues at the city’s Staatskapelle, while the incisive singing of the MDR-Rundfunkchor hits the spot early on with the male voices of the opening chorus ‘All’erta’ and the subsequent jubilation of ‘A festa!’.

Any performance of I puritani stands or falls on the quality of its four central characters: the lovers Elvira and Arturo, Arturo’s rival Riccardo, and Elvira’s sympathetic uncle Sir Giorgio Valton. Leading the cast here is the superb soprano Lisette Oropesa, bright-voiced, and equally at home in the pinpoint coloratura of her Act 1 ‘Son vergin vezzosa’ and the more exacting emotional demands of her Act 2 mad scene, ‘O rendetemi la speme... Qui la voce sua soave... Vien, diletto, è in ciel la luna’. There is a steeliness to her timbre, but also a melting delicacy even in the top register where needed. Despite a slightly nasal quality in his lower range, tenor Lawrence Brownlee (another leading present-day exponent of the bel canto repertoire) is every bit as impressive as the lone royalist Arturo Talbo, with a metallic brightness to his top notes. His high Ds with Elvira in their Act 3 duet are absolutely fearless, as is his eye-watering top F in the Act 3 finale. Tonally he may yield to the young Pavarotti on the (currently unavailable) 1971 Sutherland Decca recording, but otherwise he has few equals today.

Baritone Anthony Clark Evans as Riccardo cuts an imposing figure: he phrases the music most musically, and earns extra points for his top G in the rousing (and ever-popular) duet ‘Suoni la tromba’ that concludes Act 2. In a work that defies the usual goodie/baddie operatic stereotypes, his gift for nuance is a distinct asset, as is the touching bass of Riccardo Zanelatto as Elvira’s ‘second father’ Giorgio. More than once Zanelatto’s benevolent tones have one thinking ahead almost two decades to Germont père in Verdi’s La Traviata. The other minor roles are all appealingly sung.

Although there’s no accompanying libretto, this vibrantly-paced account of Bellini’s operatic swansong, recorded with admirable clarity, thrilling immediacy and a balance that favours the voices without losing orchestral colour, will undoubtedly quicken the pulse of bel canto fans everywhere. I puritani may play rather freely with its historical setting, but it’s an immersive musico-dramatic journey teeming with glorious numbers. This is a first-rate addition to the Bellini discography.