In a search for a Puritani standard, I’ve restricted myself here almost exclusively to early 20th-Century singers of these roles, primarily those who sang them in New York. New York is where many of the great ones of that time wound up, though, and I think anyone searching out these recordings and listening with an ear that has learned to make the necessary adjustments will be able to mix and match a lineup that will disclose much more of this opera’s vocal riches than the current presentation can offer. And as to the production:

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Charles Edwards has previously been known to us strictly as a designer, working with the director David McVicar. Of those efforts, I thought the Adriana Lecouvreur and the Fedora were workable, the Trovatore and Don Carlos not. His design for Puritani is a great pile of a Puritan meeting-house in Plymouth, mounting to a high pulpit far upstage. It is imposing, if improbably so, and could serve well enough, I suppose, for the opening scene, even though a courtyard in the Puritan fortress is specified by the creators. But several more changes of set are indicated, including a room and a hall  in Elvira’s house, the latter with windows through which we see the English encampment in the distance; the fortress’s Hall of Arms; and a loggia in a garden near Elvira’s. Edwards, as designer, has us looking at the meeting-house all night, with some changes in lighting and materials (lighting designer, Tim Mitchell) meant to symbolize the psychological state of affairs. It wore me down by the first intermission.

As director, Edwards is a man of a thousand ideas, not one of which serves the opera. Here are a few, in addition to the backstory pantomime mentioned above:

Elvira, entranced by the mysterious prisoner whose identity as Henriette Marie, the royal French  widow of the executed Stuart King Charles 1, is unbeknownst to her, is frequently busied with painting portraits of the lady, a number of which at one point are set out by the heroine for our perusal. We gather that as an artist, Elvira is a moderately advanced amateur proto-Surrealist.

In preparation for the anticipated battle, several studly guys take turns leaping up on the tiers of the meeting-house pews (movement director, Tim Claydon), pulling focus from everything else on the scene. In general, the ladies and gentlemen of the chorus are given a great deal of distracting individualized business, many comings and goings, as Edwards strives to bring some visual logic to actions not intended for the meeting-house.

When Riccardo and Giorgio join forces for “Suoni la tromba,” Giorgio strips to the waist and they slather each other with face and body paint, like tailgaters getting ready for the big game. They also pull out the stoppers and take swigs from their jugs, very naughty and perilous for Puritan boys, who can’t be expected to hold their liquor. For Ruzinski, this was a replay, for he had to tie one on for the Wolf’s Crag scene in the Simon Stone Lucia, too, the one set in present-day Tennessee, if I recall aright.