Rossi, Lauro: Cleopatra

First performed at the Teatro Regio, Turin, on 5 March 1876, Lauro Rossi’s penultimate opera Cleopatra caught the public’s attention in the wake of Verdi’s Aïda (1871). Like that better-known work, it contains some wonderful arias and set pieces, including a marvellous Act 1 banquet scene, Cleopatra’s Act 2 aria, the thrilling ensemble that closes Act 3, and the confrontation between Cleopatra and Octavian in Act 4, all making for compelling listening. From the brooding opening scene in which Diomedes foretells the fall of Egypt to Cleopatra’s death scene, this gripping grand opera by one of Italy’s forgotten masters springs vividly to life in this revival recorded at the 2008 Macerata Sferisterio Festival. “If you like Verdi, you will almost certainly enjoy this performance of Rossi’s Cleopatra, especially if you are a snapper-up of what in the eighteenth century used to be called ‘curiosities’… this would be my Discovery of the Month.” MusicWeb International