Saverio Mercadante’s Il Proscritto (The Outlaw) was first performed in Naples in 1842. Drawing a blank in its day, it was never revived, and has had to wait 180 years for its rediscovery by Opera Rara and this concert performance conducted by Carlo Rizzi.
A cosmopolitan in an era of growing nationalism, Mercadante (1795-1870) radically pushed against the formal boundaries of Italian opera by introducing harmonic, orchestral and dramatic innovations largely derived from French models, Meyerbeer in particular. In Il Proscritto, however, the amalgam doesn’t always work, and it’s an uneven piece.
