For singers alert to words and verse forms, Vinci’s approach is catnip; for those who aren’t, his settings can seem tediously unvaried. The cast divides itself along these lines. Among the experts, Roberta Invernizzi is incandescent as the heroine seeking to revenge King Cosroe’s slaughter of her kin…As the double-crossing brother of the title hero, Leslie Visco’s cool, centred delivery appropriately limns her false assurances with a creepy disingenuousness.

The singing is excellent. There’s nearly an hour of secco recitative but it’s vivid and well paced…Antonio Florio conducts the San Carlo orchestra, playing at present-day pitch, with a light touch…But the music is the thing, and this is a welcome addition to the small number of recordings of operas by this gifted and influential composer

Invernizzi is the best known of the singers. She is also the best; while the tone may now have lost some of its lustre and the lack of control in the upper register is still a problem, she remains stylistically impeccable...there are two other commendable performances. The tenor Carlo Allemano sings a strong Cosroe, noble in majesty, touchingly vulnerable in the anguish caused by the supposed treachery of Siroe, while the mezzo Daniela Salvo is a charmingly naive Laodice.