Stuttgart-based Il Gusto Barocco and their artistic director Jörg Halubek are musical treasure-hunters, whose mission statement is seeking out “forgotten masterpieces”. I’m not sure Ercole Amante strictly qualifies, but with a Netia Jones staging slated for the Paris Opera in 2026 and a genesis almost more interesting than the opera itself, it’s well worth a listen.

Ercole Amante’s curious history starts with its composer. Antonia Bembo (as Silke Leopold points out in her exemplary liner notes) falls into none of the traditional categories of female baroque composers, being neither an aristocrat, a nun or a courtesan. The Venetian daughter of a doctor, Bembo (c1640-1720) fled a violent marriage, and found refuge at the court of Louis XIV until her death.

Bembo’s only opera is a tribute – both to the king and to her teacher Francesco Cavalli. It reuses a libretto for Cavalli’s own 1662 opera, commissioned for Louis XIV’s marriage, which weaves together several Hercules stories from across Classical literature. Bembo also brings together disparate elements in her score: a musical hybrid of French and Italian...