The sight of hundreds of men (and a few women) scuttling to the South Bank, bearing scores, libretti and pocket books, is a sure sign that Opera Rara is up to its tricks again. In this case, the excited members of the audience could be heard murmuring among themselves as to the relative merits of “the Caballé” or “the Scotto” – those being the two divas who fearlessly kept alive the role of la straniera, the exotic stranger who provides the title of Bellini’s third professional opera.

Opera Rara has just completed a studio recording; and the two-act melodramma was given a spine-chilling and timber-shivering concert performance, with the London Philharmonic conducted by David Parry.

Brittany, 1200, and Isoletta, daughter of the Lord of Montolino, is about to marry Arturo, Count of Ravenstel. He, though, inevitably conceives a passion for a mysterious stranger – and, suspecting that her brother is a rival suitor, attempts to murder the poor man, who falls into a lake during a storm.

Bellini was trying very hard to impress Milan. So gone is almost all old-style florid writing, and a dark, austere sung declamation takes its place – together with an omnipresent chorus that rants, raves, warns, extols, mourns and celebrates at every possible turn. David Parry’s masterly control of the nerve-system of this mobile, highly charged melodic declamation was as superb as the singing of the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir. And the LPO had the exact measure of the score’s dark charcoals and indigos, pulsating with pizzicato, and lit by the silvery nocturnal light of solo oboe and flute.

In the title role, Patrizia Ciofi used her haunting soprano to wrap a white mist of mystery round the music of Alaide, though when the last glimmer of the fire of her love was about to die, we did wish we’d perhaps felt more of its flame. Dario Schmunck’s tenor was both tender and properly hysterical as Arturo; Mark Stone captured perfectly the character of Bellini’s new cantabile baritone in the role of Valdoburgo; and the mezzo Enkelejda Shkosa was a tragic if overtremulous Isoletta.

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