Banfield, Raffaello de: Byrons Love Letter (Naxos Historical Audio CD)

• The RCA Victor recording of Raffaello de Banfield’s 1955 opera Lord Byron’s Love Letter is a true rarity, remaining in their catalogue for only a short time and never reissued on CD before now. Based on a Tennessee Williams play set in late 19th-century New Orleans during the Mardi Gras, it revolves around an eccentric old lady, lost in the past, who displays to visitors an old love letter for money, purportedly by the rakish English poet. The opera was praised by Time magazine for its ‘vocal beauty’.