• soloists from Opera Restor’d
• TERAMINTA Kate Semmens soprano
• ARDELIA  Ruth Massey soprano
• XARINO  Iestyn Davies countertenor
• CRATANDER  Daniel Auchincloss tenor
• GONZANES  Eamonn Dougan bass
• Essex Baroque Orchestra
• directed by Steven Devine

John Stanley (1712-1786) is mainly known today for his instrumental music, but he also wrote some fine large-scale vocal works, including the opera Teraminta, to a libretto by Henry Carey, the author of ‘Sally in our alley’.  Stanley seems to have written it in the early 1750s, but there is no record of a stage production in the eighteenth century, and the only revival seems to have been a BBC broadcast in the 1950s, so we believe that this may be the first ever live concert performance.

Teraminta is set ‘in Cuba and country adjacent’ and concerns a prince, Xarino, who disguises himself as a shepherd to court the shepherdess Teraminta.  His friend Cratander becomes his rival, but is eventually diverted towards Ardelia, who has followed them into the country in disguise.  The work is essentially a miniature Handelian opera in English, and is charming, powerful and affecting by turns, making its neglect for 250 years all the more inexplicable.