For their latest release on the Chateau de Versailles Spectacles label, Christophe Rousset and his Talens Lyriques ensemble turn not to the Baroque delights of Lully featured on their previous titles, but to a classical opera seria of Italian provenance. With the 2024 Paris Olympics just a couple of months away, they explore Metastasio’s tale set in Ancient Greece at the time of the original Olympic Games. L’Olimpiade was first set to music by Caldara in 1733 (for performance in Vienna), and was soon taken up by many other composers, among them Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Hasse, Piccinni, Cherubini, Paisiello, and even the young Donizetti (1817, incomplete). One of the most successful settings was by Domenico Cimarosa, composed for the opening of the Teatro Eriteo in Vicenza in July 1784, which went on to enjoy a good two decades in the operatic repertoire – an astonishingly lengthy time for the period.

Today, Cimarosa is best known for his later comic opera Il matrimonio segreto (1792), but his earlier works in the genre – both comic and serious – had already established him as a force to be reckoned with, and he was frequently compared favourably with his younger contemporary, Mozart. Listening to this vibrant new recording – made last December in Paris’s Salle Colonne – it’s not hard to hear why Cimarosa was so acclaimed. There’s an ease of inventiveness and variety of forms – from secco and accompagnato recitatives (the former enlivened by the fortepiano, played by Rousset himself here) to short- and long-form arias, duets and ensembles – and a sure way with pacing. The recitatives are much reduced from Metastasio’s original, as is the number of arias, giving the whole two-act structure a compact feel at under two-and-a-half hours.

The plot itself involves the Olympics only peripherally: the Athenian athlete Megacle enters to win the hand of Aristea on behalf of his friend, Licida, though he loves her himself. Licida is (unknowingly) the banished son of King Clistene, and thus Aristea’s brother. When the truth is finally revealed, Licida returns to his former beloved, the long-suffering but forgiving Argene. Cimarosa’s setting of Metastasio’s text (itself based on Herodotus and Pausanias) refocuses the attention on the central love story of Aristea and Megacle, and these two roles were originally taken by Vicenza’s star attractions, soprano Francesca Lebrun (née Franziska Dorothea Danzi) and castrato Luigi Marchesi. Here they are splendidly sung by soprano Rocío Pérez (dazzling in the high coloratura passages of the Act 1 duet ‘Ne’giorni tuoi felici’ and her Act 2 aria with obbligato oboe, ‘Mi sento, oh Dio! Nel core’) and mezzo-soprano Maite Beaumont, who matches Pérez in agility and brings a poise and nobility to the character.

Mezzo Mathilde Ortscheidt and soprano Marie Lys are the other couple, Licida and Argene, the former having a velvety warmth of tone which brings much sympathy to the role, while Lys is impassioned as the deserted Argene (as in her agitated Act 2 aria ‘Spiegar non posso appieno’). As the irascible Clistene, Canadian tenor Josh Lovell sometimes sounds a little nasal and discomfited, but is a match for the role’s demanding lines where it matters, and the other tenor, Alex Banfield as the servant Aminta, makes the most of his two act-opening arias.

Alongside Pérez and Beaumont, top honours go to Rousset and his orchestra. They really know how to energise this music, which moves away from the da capo structures of the Baroque to the cantabile–cabaletta model (slow–fast) that was to dominate the 19th century. They match animation with a poised stylishness that negates the shortcomings of the plot and brings out all the inventiveness and freshness of Cimarosa’s music, by turns moving and exhilarating. If you know any of the earlier settings of Metastasio’s text (especially Vivaldi, Pergolesi and Hasse), you’ll certainly want to hear Cimarosa’s more classically-tinged take on it. No matter that the Olympic element in L’Olimpiade is rather marginal: any excuse to hear this tremendously engaging music is to be welcomed, and this recording (the only one in the catalogue, and apparently a world-premiere) is a winner. Recorded sound and supporting documentation are excellent. Medals to all concerned!