Was Opera Rara justified in reviving Bellini’s first opera? Oh yes

Adelson e Salvini
Barbican

First operas by composers who later became great or anyway expert in writing them tend to be at best of biographical interest, to be revived mainly for people who are interested to hear premonitions of the achievements that lay ahead. Up to a point that is the case with Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini, which he wrote in his early twenties, and which at the time was a big local success, being performed every Sunday for a year. Performances since bel canto operas came back into fashion have been extremely rare, and the company Opera Rara’s name has never been more appropriate than when it gave a brilliant account of the opera at the Barbican last week, with a superb cast and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted with immense vigour by Daniele Rustioni, who expressively crouched out of view of the players, leant negligently in profile with his armpit resting on the safety rail, implored the singers to give their all with beseeching gestures, and took off several times to get Act III under way.