It’s often surprising what works have never turned up on disc. Ariane, here receiving its first ever recording, isn’t by an obscure 19th-century nobody, it’s by Massenet. Nor is it juvenilia. Its premiere took place at the Paris Opéra, by which time its composer was already famous as the creator of Manon, Le Cid, Werther and Thaïs. What’s more, it wasn’t exactly a flop (though the critics had their issues with the original production). Fauré, for one, thought it was fab.

An ambitious work in five substantial acts, it tells the story of Ariadne (in French, Ariane), an operatic character famous for being the focus of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Written to a libretto by Catulle Mendès, who had collaborated previously with Chabrier, Lecoq, Messager and Hahn, it begins with Theseus killing the minotaur. The Athenian hero had found his way into the labyrinth thanks to Ariadne, daughter of King Minos. 

Departing Crete with the princesses Ariadne and Phaedra in tow, their...