Donizetti: Les Martyrs - review

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Les Martyrs

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

(Opera Rara)

Picnickers at Glyndebourne may wonder if they are suffering from deja vu.

The festival opens in two weeks with Donizetti's Poliuto, but much of the same music comes round again here in this re-working for Parisian audiences called Les Martyrs.

Opera Rara has recorded the rare French version in a new critical edition and with galvanising, period-instrument playing under conductor Mark Elder.

Michael Spyres sings stylishly as Polyeucte, the Christian convert in a hostile Roman Empire. Joyce El-Khoury is his silvery-toned Pauline. At the end both get thrown to the lions. Cue rousing final chorus.

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