Giovanni Pacini is now forgotten, but in his lifetime his operas were very popular. Such was the success of L'Ultimo Giorno di Pompei at the San Carlo in Naples in 1825 that Pacini was given a nine-year contract to succeed Rossini as director of the San Carlo. He was a prolific composer with a melodic gift, and at this time he was consciously writing in the style of his illustrious predecessor. This recording from the 1996 Opera Festival in Martina Franca, Italy, is well sung and conducted. The rudimentary plot concerns a scandalous love affair on the eve of the Vesuvius eruption, but the score is very melodious and a fine record of opera performance in the second decade of the 19th century.