Cat No 4767644

Cilea’s masterpiece is of course ‘Adriana Lecouvreur’, but his version of Daudet’s tragic story of ‘L’Arlésienne’ was a great success at its first performances (helped by a certain young Enrico Caruso, in the role of Federico) and contains much beautiful music, thoroughly undeserving of its current neglect. This passionate new recording, only the third in the catalogue, is clearly the one to have – a superb successor to the much-acclaimed rarities by Respighi (476 1884), Wolf-Ferrari (476 2675) and Ponchielli (472 6132), all recorded ‘live’ on ACCORD in Montpellier Opera productions.