This recording preserves a revival of one of Verdi’s most obscure works. Finished in 1848, It sank after three performances. This production gives a good account of the work, but shows that there are good reasons for its obscurity. The composer was bored by the subject and completed it to fulfill a contract, and much of the music shows it. It carries the stylistic hallmarks of his early work but often is slap-dash and mundane. Choruses, usually an enjoyable sidelight, especially when they written for exotic bystanders such as pirates and moors, are here usually anonymous sing-throughs. Many scenes seem paler imitations of Verdi’s stronger work. The work requires two sopranos with advanced coloratura expertise, with neither part long enough to attract an artist with real bel canto expertise. Here the part of Medora, the tenor’s suicidal lover, is sung by Vasso Papantoniou, a Greek artist who (like Elena Souliotis) had a brief career in the 1970s focusing on heavyweight roles such as Elvira (“Ernani”) and Norma. The other soprano role is more of a spinto role, though it too involves vocal agility. Angeles Gulin, who specialized in enacting early-Verdi heroines, gallantly takes on this role. Both artists are up to the basic vocal requirements of their roles and each makes dramatic points when the plot allows them. But neither generates a vivid personality out of the music or make one care about what is going on. Giorgio Casellato-Lamberti is more memorable as Corrado, the leader of the corsairs. He brings a mellow timbre and exuberant personality to his opening scene, some of the work’s best music. Later, though, he is unable to justify the character’s inept and finally suicidal actionS; at times the tenor seems just singing the notes. The artist singing Pasha Seid, the plot’s one-dimensional baddie, provides a suitably dark and stolid vocal tone to his role, one of this short opera’s meatiest. Oddly, the notes credit two baritones: Renato Bruson, at the start of his successful international career, and Giuseppe Scandola, who enjoyed a briefer provincial calling. La Fenice’s performance records say Bruson sang all the dates, but a 2002 CD of this recording released in Greece put Scandola’s name on the cover. To my ear, it’s the same baritone in all the scenes, and the evidence favors Bruson as the correct ID. A bigger question would be whether this recording is worth having. Verdi enthusiasts will be curious to hear the music is like, but it’s a pale imitation of things he’d done better elsewhere, notably in “Attila” and “Macbeth.” Medora’s Act 1 harp-accompanied aria, “Non so le tetre immagini,” is a high point, but Papantoniou just gets through it: much stronger versions of this piece are available on recital albums by Callas and Sills.