Pietro Metastasio’s dramma per musica set against the backdrop of the Olympic Games, L’Olimpiade, has been receiving a lot of air-time in recent years. There has been Vivaldi’s setting of 1734 (Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini), Baldassare Galuppi’s of 1747 (Venice Baroque Orchestra, Andrea Marcon), Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s from 1735 (Academia Montis Regalis, Alessandro de Marchi) and even L’Olimpiade: The Opera, a pastiche drawn from sixteen different composers’ settings of the libretto (Venice Baroque Orchestra, Markellos Chryssicos). The story is a complex romantic intrigue resulting from Licida’s insistence that his friend Megacle compete in the games on his behalf, and under his name. Megacle agrees without hesitation, given that he owes Licida a debt for having saved his life at some point before the opera begins. The true reason for Licida’s insistence that he wins is that the prize is the hand of Aristea, daughter of King Clistene of Sicione. To complicate matters, Megacle and Aristea are already in love, and Licida seems to have conveniently forgotten his own companion, the Cretan princess Argene, who has come to Olympia to remind him of their union. Needless to say, Megacle wins, putting himself in an incredibly difficult position. The intrigue is discovered, and Megacle leaves in a panic. Licida, meanwhile, is informed that Megacle is dead, and that he is his murderer. He is subsequently condemned to death. Meanwhile, Argene, who has been set on exacting revenge on Licida for spurning her, has a change of heart and runs to Licida’s aid. It is revealed that Licida is in fact Clistene’s son, who was exposed at birth to avoid an oracle’s prediction, but was instead rescued and taken to Crete as a baby, and all is resolved happily.

The present opera, with music by Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781), is a comparatively late setting of the text, being written for the Teatro San Carlo at Naples in 1778. Mysliveček was born in Prague, but was one of the only foreigners to make a success as a composer of Italian opera in Italy itself. In fact, his output for the stage consists solely of serious opera. In a manner recalling Italian adoration for Johann Adolf Hasse, Mysliveček was thus affectionately nicknamed ‘Il Boemo’. As was common for the time, L’Olimpiade is a somewhat truncated version, dropping several arias present in the original play, but not quite to the same extent that other composers did. The music is scored for forces which had remained the same since the beginning of the eighteenth century, a string orchestra with oboes and horns. To this are added bassoons, timpani, and the fortepiano continuo. With these forces, Mysliveček creates a rich accompaniment for melodies at once beautiful, dazzling, and technically demanding. The arias, unlike the late-Baroque tradition of which they nevertheless are a part, are composed through, and thus do not have the identical recapitulation which one finds in da capo or even dal segno arias. Overall, the musical language is close to composers such as Mozart and Vicente Martin y Soler, all the while referring back to the conservative operatic style which had dominated for most of the century. There was thus a balance between the showy coloratura arias, like Licida’s rousing Gemo in un punto e fremo which closes Act II, and simpler melodies, such as Argene’s Più non si trovano in Act I (which has been recorded separately on Magdalena Kožena’s recital disc Le belle immagini) and Licida’s lullaby Mentre dormi, amor fomenti, also in Act I. Mysliveček – happily – even restores the choruses which were often omitted in other settings.

The present production, however, has made some significant changes to the score. Instead of the original overture, they substituted that from La passione del Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo (1773), an azione sacra also by Metastasio, while also adding the first accompagnato from that work to the beginning of the opera. This overture makes periodic returns as entr’actes and ‘mood music’. Also, the final chorus, which is missing from the score as we have it today, is replaced not with another chorus, but a solo aria for Licida taken from Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s 1750 setting of Ezio, the vertiginous Ah! non son io che parlo. The effect of these changes results in the whole tone of the opera changing from an Arcadian romantic drama to something altogether darker. The chorus which would have ended the play, Viva il figlio delinquente, where the people of Olympia vote for Licida’s liberation, resulting in the expected happy ending, is merely spoken, and dissolves instead into the unsettling darkness of Licida going mad. The overall effect of this is not necessarily negative, although the reasons for doing this are still not quite clear to me.

That aside, the performance was very satisfying. In particular, the two female leads, the Czech Katařina Kněžikova as Aristea, and the Canadian-born South African Sophie Harmsen as Argene both stood out as having excellent voices and superb acting talents. Rafaella Milanesi as Megacle had a convincing masculine presence and, although she had a shaky start, gained energy and momentum as the opera progressed. Tehila Nini Goldstein’s Licida was less convincing, and lacked some presence, though her voice is equally good. Of the tenors, Krystian Adam’s Aminta was better in his role as Licida’s tutor, though why he was dressed as a governess (and thus as a woman) is equally baffling — perhaps to reflect the travesty roles of Megacle and Licida? Johannes Chum’s Clistene/San Pietro was less successful, as his coloratura was not always clean or accurate. Especially pleasing was the chorus, which only consisted of one person to a part. When not singing, they hovered in the background, eerily watching the proceedings through slits in the scenery, or assisting with moving parts of the set. Václav Luks was an admirable conductor, too, keeping his period-instrument ensemble Collegium 1704 in absolute control and accuracy in order to produce a refined, if somewhat cold tone.

The production design was generally minimalist, which suited a drama which is essentially carried forth through words rather than actions. The set, in stark green, black, and white, represented a hedge maze — a throwback to both the idea of the story being set in a pastoral milieu, as well as possibly symbolic of the many twists and turns of the plot — at the centre of which could appear various items, such as a tree or a stake. Costumes too, were representative of an unspecified contemporary style, which did not feel forced or artificial, even if they tended towards the whimsical. My only concern on this front was that the theatre was slightly too big for a drama of such an intimate nature.

It is all too seldom that the heroic operas of the second half of the eighteenth century grace our stages. This is a pity, as there is much to be found there to delight both the ears and the soul. Works such as this Olimpiade need not suffer from their proximity to giant names such as Mozart. On the contrary, they are well able to stand their ground. I should hope that productions such as this are part of a larger trend towards the rediscovery (and, importantly, staging) of many excellent works which have fallen into unjustified oblivion.

Following the performance in Dijon, L’Olimpiade went to the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg for two performances on 4 and 5 June.