On May 4, for a final opera-in-concert of its 35 ^th season at Carnegie Hall, Eve Queler’s Opera Orchestra of New York (OONY) turned to composer Italo Montemezzi and poet and playwright Sem Benelli’s L’Amore dei Tre Re (1913), which enjoyed a vogue during the first half of the 20^th century, but is rarely heard here now. Treated to a most vivid realization by Queler and company, the opera, set in a corner of Italy, a thousand years ago, as remote as Tristan und Isolde’s Cornwall and Pelléas et Mélisande ’s misty Allemonde, boasts a stirring verismo/late-Romantic score, with a formidable bass part, a Tristan esque duet for the lovers, and a Russian-sounding funeral chorus.

L’Amore dei Tre Re was played 66 times by the Metropolitan Opera between 1914 and 1949, with performances in 1941 conducted by the composer, whose Giovanni Gallurese and La Notte di Zoraïma the company also, briefly, probed. An NBC Opera television production of L’Amore dei Tre Re , in English, in the early 1960s, featured Phyllis Curtin as Fiora, the love of three kings, a part sung in an earlier era by Lucrezia Bori, Rosa Ponselle, Claudia Muzio, Grace Moore and Dorothy Kirsten. Performances by the New York City Opera in 1982 fielded Samuel Ramey’s powerful portrayal of Archibaldo, the old, blind king, once the province of Adamo Didur, Ezio Pinza and Virgilio Lazzari. Teatro Grattacielo introduced itself with the opera at Alice Tully Hall in 1997. Ramey’s presence was the raison d’ê tre for OONY’s look at the opera now, which was dedicated to the memory of Anna Moffo, who recorded the role of Fiora.

Like Verdi’s Nabucco and Aida , Rossini’s Guillaume Tell and Bellini’s Norma , to choose but a few examples, L’Amore dei Tre Re pits conquerors—the barbarian king, Archibaldo, and his son Manfredo— and conquered—Fiora, whose marriage to Manfredo was forced upon her, and Avito, once her betrothed—against each other. Archibaldo senses that Fiora is having an affair while Manfredo is off at battle, but cannot, of course, see her lover. He strangles her, puts poison on her lips, sure that her beloved will give his love a farewell kiss when she is laid out on her bier. In his literally blind desire for revenge, Archibaldo’s plot entraps not only intended quarry Avito, but also his own son, leaving him quite alone and in anguish.

Samuel Ramey. Photo by Christian Steiner.

Ramey got the proceedings off to a rousing start with Archibaldo’s aria about his conquest of Altura, 40 years before, and ended it with a ringing high F. He brought each act to a forceful conclusion, frustrated at Fiora’s betrayal and Manfredo’s unawareness in Act One; beginning to conceive his fatal plan and ending Act Two with a low E-flat that seemed to come from the very depths of the king’s merciless soul; and crying out in agony when he understood that Manfredo has died due to his own father’s machinations.

Fabiana Bravo sang Fiora in a dark soprano, with a husky attack on many notes, but delivering several sturdy high B-flats. Bravo joined Fernando de la Mora, as Avito, in two love duets, her strong, dusky instrument contrasting with his sweet tenor, which itself turned dark on a sustained high A-flat and an A-sharp. Their second act scene, at once melancholy, when she felt she must renounce him, and passionate, when they found they could not bear to part, was interrupted by Archibaldo, much as Tristan and Isolde are separated by the arrival of King Marke and his men.

The heroine had two intense exchanges with Archibaldo, the first marked by Bravo’s Fiora’s iciness and Ramey’s king’s regret—how can he not have known that she would resent her conqueror? In the second, he accused her of infidelity and, when she finally admitted, in a defiant solo rising to high B-flat, that she was indeed with her lover, he killed her and an eerie quiet followed the murder.

Heralded by a trumpet fanfare, which was played from the Dress Circle and might have come from Act Three of Verdi’s Otello , Pavel Baransky, as Manfredo displayed a solid baritone with an easy top range and ardent delivery, as he anticipated his reunion with Fiora, who gave him a chilly greeting in return. His tenderness toward her in Act Two was set against a reserve, which barely masked her hostility, until her bitter outburst, “Volete la mia vita!” (“You want my life!”) As Isolde waves a veil as a signal to Tristan, so did Manfredo give Fiora a long white scarf to wave from the castle tower in greeting to him, his solo freighted with sadness, amid the heroics of battle, at the thought of leaving her, but fervent when he gave her the scarf. An instrumental interlude described Fiora’s turmoil when Manfredo departed and Bravo made clear how heavily each wave of the glistening scarf weighed upon her.

Ramey and Baransky collaborated on a dynamic duet to round out Act Two, with the baritone’s Manfredo distraught over the death of Fiora and Ramey giving a formidable account of her “treachery” and his killing her. To begin Act Three, set in the crypt in the castle chapel, Queler led the Coro Lirico in a sonorous a cappella prayer, which had a Russian liturgical sound. Hints of insurrection—of suspicion that Archibaldo has slain Fiora and of continued loyalty to the prince, Avito—lurked just beneath the mourning. De la Mora’s heartbroken Avito offered a dulcet lament, which rose to high B-flat as his anxiety increased and he determined to kiss Fiora once more. His mood turned euphoric as the poison began to work, but he delivered an impassioned confession of their love to Manfredo just before he died and Manfredo elected to join his spouse in death as well. Gaston Rivero, Erika Person, Stepan Atamian, Guillermo Lagundino and Maria Barnet took other solo parts.

Next season at Carnegie Hall, OONY will present the New York recital debut of tenor Marcello Giordani on October 15; and, under Queler, Donizetti’s Dom Sebastien, with Dimitry Korchak, Vessilina Kasarova and Stephen Powell, on November 7; Rossini’s Otello , with Ramon Vargas, Ruxandra Donose, Maria Zifchak and Kenneth Tarver, on January 17, 2007; and Cilea’s L’Arlesiana, with Latonia Moore, Marianne Cornetti and Giuseppe Filianoti, on February 21. Then, on May 3, at Weill Hall, the company offers a recital by soprano Moore.

Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall, 57^th Street & 7 ^th Avenue

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