Category: News

Opera Rara – 2014 TALKS

We begin our 2014 programme of talks and recitals by hosting two evenings exploring the background of two very different operas Donizetti wrote during his stay in Paris. The talks will be given by Dr Flora Willson (King’s College, Cambridge) and Professor Roger Parker (King’s College London and Opera Rara’s Repertoire Consultant)

Places, at £15.00 per person (includes a glass of wine or soft drink), can be booked directly with Opera Rara:

134-146 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3AR

Tel: +44 (0)20 7613 2858

Email: info@opera-rara.com

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Tuesday 11 February, 6.30pm – Opera Rara Music Library

Donizetti’s Rita

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Thurdsay 20 March, 6.30pm – Opera Rara Music Library

Donizetti’s Les Martyrs

Places are limited so book early. 

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Our Fantasio concert performance has received some great reviews. Read what the press had to say…

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Nominated for the International Opera Awards 2014. 
Opera Rara’s studio recording of Donizetti’s Belisario was released in October 2013 and has received great critical acclaim. Download the PDF to find out more about this recording.

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NEWS RELEASE

DIGITAL DOWNLOADING IS HERE!

Opera Rara, the label which, for over 40 years, has specialised in reviving the neglected vocal and operatic repertoire of the 19th century, is thrilled to announce that all recordings are now available to buy as digital downloads on its own website.

Our most recent recordings are available for the very first time (and exclusively on the Opera Rara website) in high resolution 24 bit master sound quality. The whole catalogue is also available for download in MP3 (Lossy), ALAC (Apple Lossless) and FLAC (Free Lossless) formats. The download catalogue includes recordings currently out of stock on CD.

PDFs of Opera Rara’s highly acclaimed booklets (containing superbly written and informed articles, photographs from rehearsals/recording sessions plus libretti where relevant) can be downloaded free of charge when full albums are purchased.

Says Stephen Revell, Opera Rara’s Managing Director, “we are looking to provide our customers with every possible means of making this specialist repertoire available directly from our own site. From wherever they may be in the world, opera lovers are never more than a few clicks away from accessing our recordings on our own site.”

Opera Rara is a registered charity and all proceeds from album sales are invested straight back into research, recordings and performances. Customers who purchase direct from Opera Rara help ensure that the company is able to continue presenting the very best in undiscovered operatic and vocal works of the 19th century.

For detailed information on how to download recordings, pricing, the range of sound file formats etc visit the Opera Rara website opera-rara.com.

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Donizetti’s CATERINA CORNARO – JUNE 2013 new release

In a bid to encourage consumers to buy direct from Opera Rara, this stunning new recording of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro will be made available FOR A LIMITED PERIOD OF THREE MONTHS exclusively through its website, after which the box set will be on general release. The recording will also be available as a digital download direct from Opera Rara’s website as from 3 June 2013.

Caterina Cornaro was written in the extremely productive last period of Donizetti’s life (between Don Pasquale and Linda di Chamounix) and was the last of his operas to be premiered in the composer’s  lifetime. Like every other work of this period, it is intensely original, in this case being unusually dark in both subject matter and general musical tone.

This is the only opera of Donizetti’s later period not to have had a quality modern recording. Conductor David Parry says: “The opera requires a prima donna with a wonderful voice, extraordinary technique and exceptional histrionic ability, which we have in Carmen Giannattasio: the role could actually have been written for her.

“The story is resonant and believable, a woman forced into a political marriage with a king she does not love, but who turns out to be noble and good, so that she feels that she cannot abandon him, and who is assassinated at the instigation of a bitter enemy, leaving her to rule on her own. This calls up from Donizetti one of his most deeply felt, atmospheric and dramatically truthful scores. It is concise and hard-hitting, and I simply cannot understand why the opera is not in the repertoire; it is badly in need of a proper studio-recording.”

The 2CD set is accompanied by a complete libretto with an English translation alongside an article and synopsis by the eminent 19th-century musical scholar, Jeremy Commons.

Buy the recording: Caterina Cornaro

Below: David Parry (conductor), Colin Lee (Gerardo), Colin Lee, Troy Cook (Lusignano) and David Parry, Carmen Giannattasio (Caterina Cornaro) with Troy Cook

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RECORDED AT THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE

COVENT GARDEN

ZhengZhong Zhou, Hanna Hipp, Pablo Bemsch, Susana Gaspar

Southbank Sinfonia

Geoffrey Paterson, conductor – Le Portrait de Manon

Volker Krafft, conductor – Les Nuits d’été

Commitment to upcoming young artists has always been central to the work of Opera Rara and this brand new release features a double bill of Massenet’s Le Portrait de Manon and Berlioz’s song cycle Les Nuits d’été with artists from the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme and the Southbank Sinfonia. Recorded from live staged performances at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre, this is the first time the composers Massenet and Berlioz have appeared in Opera Rara’s catalogue.

Le Portrait de Manon (1894): from the opening bars of Des Grieux’s celebrated air, “Ah fuyez, douce image”, the score is peppered with familiar quotations from Massenet’s earlier work, Manon, written 10 years earlier. Des Grieux (ZhengZhong Zhou), now an old man, is still obsessed with memories of his lost love, Manon, and keeps a portrait of her in a sealed box. He is worried when his impressionable young nephew, Jean (Hanna Hipp), tells of his love for a penniless girl, Aurore (Susana Gaspar), convinced that she is little more than a gold-digger. Persuaded by his friend Tiberge (Pablo Bemsch), Des Grieux comes to realise that their love is genuine when they discover the portrait and it is revealed that Aurore is, in fact, the niece of his beloved Manon.

Les Nuits d’été: we are more familiar with hearing the cycle performed in concert by a solo voice but Berlioz did, in fact, intend these songs to be distributed amongst a number of different voice types. It therefore seems a perfectly natural choice to follow this arrangement for the young artists performing here (Hanna Hipp, Pablo Bemsch and Susana Gaspar).

The 1CD set is accompanied by Opera Rara’s legendarily fabulous packaging, including a complete libretto for Le Portrait de Manon and song translations for Les Nuits d’été and detailed notes on the pieces from musicologist Hugh Macdonald.

Order the recording

Dear friends

OPERA RARA 2013

My colleagues at Opera Rara join me in sending you our very best wishes for a happy, healthy and opera-filled new year!

We would like to begin 2013, a year which marks the 35th anniversary of Opera Rara’s first release (Donizetti’s Ugo, conte di Parigi) by sharing with you some of our exciting plans for the year ahead.

Our first release of 2013 is a live recording from the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. We have always been passionate about supporting young singers and the February release features a double bill of Massenet’s Le Portrait de Manon and Berlioz’s song cycle, Les Nuits d’été, with singers and conductors from the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme and the Southbank Sinfonia.

June sees the release of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro. The first in our new series of studio recordings and performances partnering with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the opera features an all star cast, including Carmen Giannattasio, Colin Lee, Troy Cook, Loïc Félix, Vuyani Mlinde, Sophie Bevan and Graeme Broadbent. The award-winning David Parry conducts.

Later in the year, we will release a studio recording of Donizetti’s Belisario, again with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Opera Rara and the BBCSO presented a semi-staged concert performance of the opera at the Barbican last October. One of the critical highlights of 2012, the work was conducted by Sir Mark Elder with a wonderful cast including Sicilian baritone, Nicola Alaimo, rising Canadian star, Joyce El-Khoury, Welsh soprano, Camilla Roberts, young American tenor, Russell Thomas and internationally celebrated bass, Alastair Miles.

Our 2013 recording plans include Offenbach’s Fantasio and we are delighted to be teaming up once more with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment both for a studio recording and subsequent concert at the Royal Festival Hall on 15 December. Conducted by our Artistic Director, Sir Mark Elder, the cast includes Marlis Petersen, Sarah Connolly and Russell Braun. We are particularly delighted to introduce the Opera Rara Chorus, directed by the Royal Opera House’s Renato Balsadonna.

As most of our supporters are aware, we rely largely on trusts, corporate and individual help to fund our recordings, concerts and administration. Opera Rara is committed to rediscovering the “forgotten” operatic heritage of the 19^th century, produces more world première recordings than any other label and regularly presents concert performances of the works it records.

For more information on all our recordings, please visit our new website at www.opera-rara.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Finally, I would like to offer enormous thanks to all those who continue to support us.

With very best wishes,

Stephen Revell

Managing Director