Cet enregistrement, comme les mémorables Fées du Rhin d'Offenbach, chef-d'oeuvre de l'édition 2002 où Friedemann Layer était déjà au pupitre, fait partie de la série consacrée aux oeuvres "redécouvertes", si l'on peut dire, par René Koering à travers le Festival de Radio France-Montpellier dont on saluera au passage la programmation courageuse et originale.

La campana sommersa was one of Respighi’s most successful works. It is an interesting piece not the least because of its philosophical ambiguities. On the surface it appears to be a story of the conflict of orthodox Christian faith with older, more pagan beliefs as represented by the fairy folk: Ondine, the water sprite, the Faun (the spirit of the woods) and the heroine, Rautendelein, the elf-girl. Respighi confessed to having fallen in love with the character of Rautendelein. His wife, Elsa, observed that, in this opera, he revealed his predilection for the world of nature and fable. Respighi had a complex personality, torn between ascetic ideals, often reaching the domain of pantheistic mysticism and the sensual realities of the world.

My late, lamented colleague, Michael Oliver, would have exulted at the prospect of reviewing this hardly-ever-heard example of verismo, a genre (like so many others) of which he made a speciality. Ponchielli’s last opera appears never to have been recorded before, and has received few performances, even in Italy, after its comparatively successful première at La Scala in 1885.