For a long time, Donizetti’s La Favorite appeared to have suffered the fate of many of its grand opéra confrères: a popular staple of the Paris Opéra for over 70 years, it slipped from the stage at the end of World War One to its resting place in the operatic necropolis. The work did enjoy an occasional afterlife – but as La favorita, an adulterated Italian version, replete with clumsy translation and senseless plot modifications to assuage the religious sensibilities of over-zealous censors. Screen versions of Donizetti’s opera have, until now, been exclusively of this Italian incarnation, and even then the selection has been severely limited. Enthusiasts have faced a choice between a heavily cut 1953 film adaptation, with voiceovers, flashbacks, and a teenage Sophia Loren (miming to Palmira Vitali); and a low-resolution Tokyo broadcast from 1971, starring Fiorenza Cossotto and Alfredo Kraus. The extant discography of Donizetti’s opera, though more extensive, has been similarly weighted in favour of La favorita, with only two available audio recordings of the French creation (both abridged to varying extents): an authentically crackly 1912 Pathé production, with Ketty Lapeyrette and Henri Albers; and an RCA recording from 2000, featuring Vesselina Kasarova and Ramon Vargas. Opus Arte’s recent DVD of La Favorite, recorded live at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse in February 2014, is thus long overdue; and although, once again, the score suffers a number of cuts, including, most conspicuously, the music for the Act II ballet, it nonetheless brings us a significant step closer to rediscovering Donizetti’s work as he originally crafted it for the Parisian stage.

La Favorite, a grand opéra in four acts, was premiered in Paris in 1840, following earlier successes for Donizetti that year with La Fille du régiment and Les Martyrs. Commissioned in haste by the Paris Opéra, after Meyerbeer fell behind with Le Prophète, Donizetti plundered his unperformed L’ange de Nisida, an opera with a libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, written for the Théâtre de la Renaissance in 1839 shortly before that company dissolved.Footnote ¹ Adapted, with the help of librettist Eugène Scribe, to meet the institutional demands of the capital’s leading lyric stage, the resulting opera was, as Hugo Shirley observes in his concisely informative DVD liner notes, ‘a glorious hybrid’: a work at the intersection of French grand operatic and Italian bel canto traditions.

La Favorite does indeed contain many of the hallmarks of a classic French grand opéra, not least the obligatory pair of doomed lovers whose future happiness will, before curtain-down, be thwarted by religio-political forces beyond their control: in this case the struggles between church and state, set against the backdrop of the Spanish Reconquista. But for all this, it remains a most intimate example of the genre. The focus lies firmly on the central love triangle: the young novice, Fernand, falls in love with a mysterious mezzo, Léonor (based on the historical figure Eleonora di Guzman), who, unbeknownst to him, is mistress to the king. The aesthetic vision of the artistic team behind the Toulouse production feeds on, and complements, this focus, offering a searing study of abstracted human emotions.

As set designer, Vincent Lemaire stays true to his signature minimalism: the opera’s locations – the monastery of St James of Compostela, the island of León and the Alcázar Palace in Seville – are merely hinted at with stylized, silhouetted arches. Only a handful of props appear on stage: an illuminated suitcase that accompanies Fernand on his ill-fated journey; an array of brightly upholstered chairs; and several stuffed peacocks (the symbolism does at times feel heavy-handed, if also occasionally inscrutable). While Christian Lacroix’s semi-historicized costumes, with their half ruffs and puffs in sumptuous silks, satins and velvets, nod to the work’s original fourteenth-century setting, the asymmetric hems, jewel tones, and voluminous cuts also contribute to the abstract quality of the production. Lacroix’s creations, together with the pared-down sets, strip away the historico-political markers of grand opéra, shining the spotlight on the complex relationships that lie at the heart of this elegant score.

One of the most striking visual elements of the production is the ever-evolving Turner-esque sky, its tonal range mirroring the emotional trajectory of the opera’s narrative. Opening up the set beyond the claustrophobic enclosures of the cloistered monastery and palace, this backdrop gestures towards the powerful forces that rule the characters’ destinies, and the more universal questions that the opera addresses. The atmospheric interplay of colours is further amplified by Guido Levi’s lighting, which repeatedly bathes the singers in an uncanny green glow, reflecting the iridescence of the costumes and omnipresent peacocks, and foregrounding the opera’s themes of jealousy and pride. In short, the synergy of lighting, costumes, symbolism and set design offers, for the most part, an effective and coherent reading of what is, given its patchwork history, a remarkably cohesive work.

Leading the international cast, Chinese tenor Yiji Shi, who cut his teeth on Rossini, has a sweet, light, lyrical voice – too sweet and light, perhaps, for the more heightened dramatic moments, and his acting on the whole is a little stiff. But while his relationship with Léonor is never entirely convincing, their beautifully balanced duets and his assured rendition of Fernand’s Act 4 aria, ‘Ange si pur’, not to mention near-perfect diction, more than make up for any minor shortcomings in the performance.

The American mezzo Kate Aldrich offers a fine performance as Léonor, her voice particularly impressive in its darkly-coloured lower reaches. Donizetti provides little opportunity for character development, but Aldrich fully embraces the melodramatic qualities of the role, not least in Léonor’s bravura double aria ‘O mon Fernand’. Here drenched in a red light that makes her golden dress appear blood-stained, Aldrich – with a wild glint in her eye – turns the fiery roulades and soaring scalar runs of the cabaletta’s reprise into a quasi-mad-scene, the exaggerated outpourings of a woman rendered insane by the injustice of her situation. It is in the cabalettas that the hybrid nature of the opera appears at its most uncomfortable; contemporary French critics were quick to censure these ‘vulgar’ Italianate moments, drawing attention to the disjuncture between text and music. These critics included Berlioz, who, reviewing the premiere, complained that Léonor’s ‘sad and distressed mood is suddenly distorted by virtuosic passages and rapid scales, worthy of the most trifling opéra comique’.Footnote ² Reinterpreting the cabaletta as a mad-scene, however, goes some way to offering a convincing dramatic justification for these perceived distortions.

French baritone Ludovic Tézier is superb as King Alphonse: his nuanced performance draws the portrait of a conflicted man torn between love and politics, from his Act 2 outpouring of love in ‘Léonor viens’, to the chilling irony of ‘Pour tant d’amour’. This shift in attitude is starkly reinforced by director Vincent Boussard’s decision to introduce a more explicitly violent side to Alphonse: in the finale to Act 2, following his discovery of Léonor’s infidelity, the King forces his mistress to the ground, bringing to the fore the inequity of their relationship and the abuse that Léonor has been made to endure.

The three main protagonists are surrounded by a strong supporting cast, not least the bass Giovanni Furlanetto, whose Balthazar brings the requisite gravitas to the role of the Father Superior; and soprano Marie-Bénédicte Souquet, who acquits herself with charm and a crystalline voice in the role of Inès, Léonor’s confidante. Conductor Antonello Allemandi, a bel canto specialist, maintains a good dramatic pace, and the orchestral playing is refined, if never especially exciting.

La Favorite may have been unjustly absent for the best part of a century, but there are signs that it is slowly clawing its way back in to the repertory. Since the Toulouse production first aired in 2014, there have been a number of new productions, including at the Munich Bayerische Staatsoper and La Fenice (both in 2016), with further productions planned for 2017. This resurrection is taking place in the midst of a more general Donizetti revival, made possible, in part, by the ongoing critical edition of his works under Roger Parker and Gabriele Dotto,Footnote ³ and further fuelled by Opera Rara’s success with Les Martyrs under Sir Mark Elder in 2014. The extent of this revival can be seen in the recent announcement that La Favorite’s primary musical source, L’Ange de Nisida, will receive its world premiere at Covent Garden in the summer of 2018. In this context, we can confidently expect to hear – and see – more of La Favorite in the future; perhaps, before too long, we may even hear the work in its entirety. Until then, this DVD is a welcome addition to the catalogue, offering a compelling case for why this work deserves to be better known.