Opera Rara’s latest release Rossini in 1819 coming 18 February
Opera Rara presents a new Opera Rara Classics boxset, Rossini in 1819, with a limited edition of three sought-after opere serie by Gioachino Rossini, performed by international bel canto champions, including Gregory Kunde, Jennifer Larmore, Carmen Giannattasio and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo. An online launch event to celebrate the release will be held for Opera Rara’s members and press on 17 February and will include special guests David Parry, Carmen Giannattasio and Eleonora Di Cintio. For more information on this event, click here. The Rossini in 1819 Box Set is available to purchase from 18 February. For purchase information, click here.
Premiered only ten months apart in 1819, these three operas fell out of the repertoire soon after Rossini’s death but have, over the last few decades, been rehabilitated in the operatic canon for the joy of Rossini lovers. Remastered to the best audio quality and featuring a specially commissioned essay by Rossini specialist Eleonora Di Cintio, these recordings, unavailable for many years, will delight opera collectors and Rossini fans.
Opera Rara Classics
Rossini in 1819
8CD BOX SET
Three complete operas
Ermione
La donna del lago
Bianca e Falliero
Ermione is, without doubt, one of the greatest operas by Rossini, despite it being perhaps the least
immediately successful. The composer was resigned: ‘It is my little Guillaume Tell in Italian,’ he said,
and will not see the light of day until after my death.’ Rossini was right, since after Ermione’s revival
in Pesaro in 1987, it has been unanimously recognised as a lost masterpiece.
La donna del lago was the first Italian opera to be based on a work by Sir Walter Scott, the narrative poem The Lady of the Lake. This opera marks a milestone in the development of romanticism in Rossini’s composition and was one of the most successful of all his serious operas, yielding many performances throughout European venues, as well as being presented in Cuba and in many major South American houses until the end of the 1860s.
Bianca e Falliero is set within war-torn Venice in the 17hth century. It tells the story of Bianca, in love with the Venetian general Falliero, and her resistance to marry Capellio, a member of a rival clan. This opera, which is one of Rossini’s most sumptuous and ornate, is considered very difficult to sing due the intensity of its coloratura writing.