Opera Rara's 55th Season

We’re delighted to announce our 55th season of live operatic archaeology featuring performances and record releases celebrating the past made new.

Learn MoreNews

Support Us

When you support Opera Rara, you join us on a journey of operatic discovery. Your generosity makes our mission possible, and your investment is key to bringing our ground-breaking work to a worldwide audience.

DonateMembership

Verdi’s original 1857 Simon Boccanegra

The first-ever studio recording of Verdi’s original 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra with The Hallé, the Chorus of Opera North and an exciting cast conducted by Sir Mark Elder

OrderNew Release

2025/26 Salon Concerts

Opera Rara’s salon concert series features exciting emerging artists in intimate venues in London.

Learn MoreEvents

Donizetti’s L'esule di Roma

Opera Rara has restored L’esule di Roma (1828), an opera which is considered a milestone in the Donizetti’s career. Vocal fireworks fly in this opera, punctuating remarkable ensembles and touching arias.

OrderNew Release

Donizetti Songs Vol.3 & Vol. 4

The prolific and versatile Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti wrote around 200 songs. Vols. 3 and 4 of this new collection of the complete solo songs of Donizetti features tenor Michael Spyres, mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux and pianists Carlo Rizzi and Giulio Zappa.

OrderNew Release

Opera Rara's 55th Season

We’re delighted to announce our 55th season of live operatic archaeology featuring performances and record releases celebrating the past made new.

Learn MoreNews

Support Us

When you support Opera Rara, you join us on a journey of operatic discovery. Your generosity makes our mission possible, and your investment is key to bringing our ground-breaking work to a worldwide audience.

DonateMembership

Verdi’s original 1857 Simon Boccanegra

The first-ever studio recording of Verdi’s original 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra with The Hallé, the Chorus of Opera North and an exciting cast conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

OrderNew Release

2025/26 Salon Concert Series

Opera Rara’s salon concert series features exciting emerging artists in intimate venues in London.

TicketsEvents

Donizetti Songs Vol. 3 and Vol. 4

The prolific and versatile Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti wrote around 200 songs. Vols. 3 and 4 of this new collection of the complete solo songs of Donizetti features tenor Michael Spyres, mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux and pianists Carlo Rizzi and Giulio Zappa.

OrderNew Release

Donizetti's L'esule di Roma

Opera Rara has restored L’esule di Roma (1828), an opera which is considered a milestone in the composer’s illustrious career. Vocal fireworks fly in this opera, punctuating remarkable ensembles and touching arias.

OrderNew Release

Upcoming Events

Who we are

Opera Rara’s mission is to rediscover, restore, record and perform the lost operatic heritage of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

About Us

How you can help

When you support Opera Rara, you join us on a journey of operatic discovery.

Support Us

Featured Recordings

Featured Video

Opera Rara’s 55th Anniversary Season

We’re delighted to announce our 55th season of live operatic archaeology featuring performances and record releases celebrating the past made new. Our new season launches on 26 September with the release of Donizetti Songs Volumes 5 and 6, featuring Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi and Artist Ambassador Ermonela Jaho. Our Donizetti Song Project, launched in September 2023, will culminate this season with the further releases of Volume 7 with Rosa Feola and Volume 8 with Nicola Alaimo. The latter will also feature in Opera Rara’s final ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital at Wigmore Hall in June 2026. Rizzi and Jaho will also lead our 55th season full-scale opera production: the final, 1921 version of Puccini’s La rondine. For the first time ever, this third version will be heard publicly in its entirety and recorded in the studio; new material from the second version (1920) will be included in an appendix.

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Ask us a question 

Ask Opera Rara

Featured News

June Recording of the Month: Linda di Chamounix

Our June Recording of the Month is now available in full on our YouTube channel. One of the biggest successes of Donizetti’s career, Linda di Chamounix was performed all over the operatic world in the decades following its 1842 Viennese premiere, then fell into...

May Recording of the Month: Maria di Rohan

Our May Recording of the Month is now available in full on our YouTube channel. Our recording of Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan is of the original two tenor version first heard in Vienna in June 1843. The album also includes some of the appendices from the revised...

Summer Stream: Ellie Neate & Florent Mourier

This Sunday 1 June from 4pm BST, we’ll be streaming the first of two streams this summer featuring Ellie Neate and Florent Mourier in a recital of songs by Donizetti and his contemporaries: Marietta Brambilla, Franz Liszt, Maria Malibran, Giovanni Pacini and...

First studio recording of Verdi’s 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra Reviewed

Released on Friday 21 March, reviews for our latest release – the first studio recording of the 1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra – have been streaming in over the past couple of months. Sample some of the reviews below and head over to this...

We’re hiring: Digital Content Manager

We are hiring for a Digital Content Manager to join our team from September before the start of our 55th season. The Digital Content Manager will report to the Development and Communications Director. Working as part of a small team, they will help the charity achieve...

Opera Rara announce 55th season

We’re delighted to announce our 55th season of live operatic archaeology featuring performances and record releases celebrating the past made new. Our new season launches on 26 September with the release of Donizetti Songs Volumes 5 and 6, featuring Opera Rara’s...

April Recording of the Month: Il pirata

It’s nearly the end of the month which means that the next in our series of complete operas on YouTube is now available! Our April Recording of the Month is Bellini’s Il pirata – the composer’s third opera, written when he was only 27 and his...

Donizetti Songs Volumes 3 and 4 Reviewed

Opera Rara’s recording project, spanning a total of eight albums, is truly extraordinary – the words from one of our first reviews of our latest installment of our Donizetti Song Project recording cycle: Volumes 3 and 4 released in February with our Artistic...

YouTube Stream: Michael Spyres & Marie-Nicole Lemieux

This Sunday 16 March from 4pm GMT, we’ll be streaming our fourth ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital captured at London’s Cadogan Hall on Monday 10 March. Michael Spyres, Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Giulio Zappa present rare Donizetti songs featured...

March Recording of the Month: Aureliano in Palmira

Revealing our March Recording of the Month: Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira written when the composer was only 21 (1813) and in the same year he produced three other operas! Kenneth Tarver is Aureliano with London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Maurizio...