A daring wife disguises herself in order to be hired as a prison guard and thus rescue her unjustly detained husband: the story of Leonora, taken from the French novel by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, is familiar to us through Beethoven’s only opera.

The same story also inspired Giovanni Simone Mayr, a German composer who lived and taught in Bergamo. An adept of Italian bel canto, he counted Gaetano Donizetti as one of his pupils.

L’Amor Coniugale brought Mayr great success following its 1805 premiere in Padua and was revived many times. Love is not only at the centre of the plot, but also of the score, which cleverly combines orchestral writing inherited from Mozart and Haydn with the Italian vocal tradition. This ‘sacred union’ makes Mayr’s music highly appealing.

Revisited by David Stern and his Opera Fuoco in a complete, critical version, this is an essential recording of Nineteenth Century opera repertoire.