An opera of love and intrigue in Scotland? There are a few, and a long-forgotten one is on this week’s Sunday Opera (7/23 3:00 p.m.) in Saverio Mercadante’s “Il Proscritto”
Written in 1842, this 47th of Mercadante’s 58 operas disappeared until it was revived in 2022 at London’s Barbican Hall by Opera Rara, and it’s that performance to which we’ll be listening.
The opera features the political treachery of those who followed Oliver Cromwell in 17th Century Scotland and how Malvina Douglas becomes their unwitting pawn after it’s assumed that her husband has been killed in a shipwreck.
The cast includes Elizabeth DeShong, Ivan Ayon-Rivas, Ramon Vargas, Irene Roberts, Alessandro Fisher, Goderdzi Janelidze, Sally Matthews, Susan Gaspar, and Niall Anderson with the Britten Sinfonia and the Opera Rara Chorus. Carlo Rizzi is the conductor.
Join Michael Kownacky after the opera for more music of Mercadante who somehow found time to compose orchestral and instrumental music along with his 58 operas. Our afternoon together with feature overtures to two of Mercadante’s other operas, “Nitocri” (an ancient Egyptian Princess) and “Gli Schiti” (“The Scythians”). Also planned are his Flute Concerto No. 2, Quartetto No. 5 in C minor, and the Concerto in D.
Join us and explore the music of Saverio Mercadante who, although he never achieved the fame of composers like Rossini, still wrote some fascinating, lush, and moving scores.