The first event in Washington Concert Opera’s 37th season, on Dec. 2, was the D.C. premiere of Gioachino Rossini’s “Ermione,” an opera that “immediately sank into oblivion” in 1819, according to WCO co-founder Peter Russell.

Why did it fail? Musically, Rossini “might have just pushed the envelope a little too far” for the Naples audience, suggested Russell in his pre-concert remarks. And the story’s trajectory, from bleak to bleaker, probably didn’t help. “Love,” sang the chorus (in Italian), “you are the cause of these sad and wicked vicissitudes.”