Ruggero Leoncavallo was one of history's great exemplars of the one-hit wonder, with I Pagliacci (1892) being his most popular opera from the start. Leoncavallo tried to match its success for several decades, and with Zingari ("Gypsies"), he came close; the opera ran for hundreds of performances in London and also did well in the U.S. One can see what the English liked about it. It is classed as a verismo opera with its tale of a nobleman falling in love with a Romani girl who in turn falls for one of her compatriots, but until the later stages, it also has aspects of operetta, with slightly cheesy faux-Romani melodies, peppy choruses, short length (what s here is just over an hour), and a generally diatonic harmonic palette. It is as if Arthur Sullivan had undertaken a story of this kind. Zingari has occasionally been recorded, but this release, made in conjunction with a 2021 live concert performance, is probably the top choice. There's a veteran conductor, Carlo Rizzi, getting a good deal of energy out of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and some singers -- soprano Krassimira Stoyanova as the girl Fleana, Arsen Soghomonyan as the nobleman Radu, and Stephen Gaertner as his rival Tamar -- who shine in the work's profusion of solo arias and romantic duets. Kudos to the Opera Rara label, which has done fine work with Leoncavallo; this opera, with the moderate resources required, would be excellent for university productions and the like. The fact that this now little-known opera showed up on classical best-seller lists in the fall of 2022 shows the possibilities.
© James Manheim /TiVo