
Puccini’s La Rondine (The Swallow) is no apprentice work. On the contrary, it was his eighth opera, composed after La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Yet it wasn’t staged at Covent Garden until 2002 and remains popular largely only with the cognoscenti.
It has long been a favourite of Antonio Pappano, however: the first work he recorded with the LSO in 1996. And here he was reunited with that orchestra and a strong cast in the first of two concert performances (the second is on Thursday).