Zaira

By taking the very best music from a fascinating, unknown score, Opera Rara begins its new series, the Essential Opera Rara. The chosen selections contain the heart or essence of a work on a single disc of highlights. Saverio Mercadante's Zaira is the first in the series. Mercadante had spent four years writing operas in Spain and Portugal when he returned to Italy in 1831. At that time the most popular composers were Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini. Mercadante knew he had to compete with the dramatic genius of Donizetti and the melting lyricism of Bellini. It was, in fact, Bellini who used Felice Romani's libretto first; written in haste, it had no success. Adapting the existing text to his own purposes, Mercadante produced something remarkable. The dramatic opportunities are seized with a sure hand and his most plangent melodies provide some of the best vocal music of his long career. All of this for the tragic story of the slave who marries a sultan.