Category: News

On 9 September, Opera Rara launched its Donizetti Song Project: an ambitious new multi-year initiative to record and perform Donizetti’s entire corpus of songs, nearly 200 in total of which many have never been heard before. Following the Project’s launch at Wigmore Hall with Lawrence Brownlee and Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi, the company presented two further recitals as part of its Salon Series for emerging artists, giving in total thirteen modern-day Donizetti songs premieres to the public this autumn. Opera Rara’s latest release is Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde with London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel. Its April 2023 release of Mercadante’s Il proscritto with Britten Sinfonia conducted by Carlo Rizzi won the International Opera Award for best Complete Opera Recording at the end of November. Below are a list of Opera Rara event highlights for the diary from the start of the New Year.

Thursday 22 February
William Thomas sings Donizetti songs
Opera Rara’s next Salon Series recital for emerging artists this season features British bass William Thomas, finalist in the 2023 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize. William, together with pianist Florent Mourier, presents an evening of rare Donizetti songs alongside romanzes by Verdi.

Friday 1 March
Donizetti L’esule di Roma recording release
Donizetti’s 1828 experimental Neopolitan opera, L’esule di Roma, put the composer on the international map according to Opera Rara’s Repertoire Consultant Roger Parker, who, together with Ian Schofield, created the new critical edition of the opera marking the company’s 27th complete Donizetti revival, and 47th restoration project. Carlo Rizzi conducts Britten Sinfonia with a cast led by Nicola Alaimo, Albina Shagimuratova and Sergey Romanovsky. Also featured are Kezia Bienek, Lluís Calvet i Pey and André Henriques all making their recording debuts with this release. A digital launch will take place on 29 February.

Tuesday 12 March
Opera Rara 2024-25 Season Preview
Opera Rara’s artistic team led by Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi and Repertoire Consultant Roger Parker present a new season of live operatic archaeology including the first two releases in its Donizetti Song Project featuring tenor and baritone songs recorded with Lawrence Brownlee and Nicola Alaimo. This online event is available to Opera Rara’s supporters and press. It will be available on YouTube on Wednesday 13 March.

Thursday 18 April
1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in Manchester
Opera Rara team up with the Hallé and former Artistic Director Sir Mark Elder to present the original 1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Edited by Roger Parker for Casa Ricordi, this new edition of the opera is the first to be based on Verdi’s original autograph score which only recently became available to scholars. Igor Golovatenko takes up the title role and is joined by Eleonora Buratto as Amelia, Iván Ayón-Rivas – who made his Opera Rara debut in Mercadanate’s Il proscritto – as Gabriele Adorno, and William Thomas as Jacopo Fiesco.

Thursday 23 May
Ermonela Jaho sings Donizetti songs at Wigmore Hall
Artist Ambassador Ermonela Jaho returns to Opera Rara for its second ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital at Wigmore Hall. Jaho, accompanied by Rizzi, presents songs by Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Gounod and Viardot. A week prior to the recital, Jaho and Rizzi will record the Donizetti songs in the studio for release in 2025.

Earlier this year, Opera Rara announced the company’s most ambitious project to date, the Donizetti Song Project, which will see the recording and performance of nearly 200 songs by Gaetano Donizetti. Following the restoration of the songs, many of which are unknown and have not been performed since the 19th century, the project launched in September with a performance by star tenor Lawrence Brownlee and Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi at London’s Wigmore Hall. Two recital discs were recorded, one with Brownlee and one with baritone Nicola Alaimo, which will be released in 2024.

Continuing this multi-year project, Opera Rara’s Artist Ambassador, Ermonela Jaho, will record and perform her portion of the Donizetti Song Project. Following her recording of two recital discs with Rizzi at the piano, Jaho and Rizzi will give a performance at Wigmore Hall. This will be the second ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital at Wigmore Hall in the series. The programme includes songs by Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Gounod and Viardot. Tickets are available to the general public in January. Further information can be found here…

Ermonela Jaho’s recital discs will be available worldwide in 2025.

Ermonela Jaho’s Donizetti Songs recital discs and Wigmore Hall performance are generously supported by

Elena Baturina in loving memory of Yury Luzhkov.

Starting on Giving Tuesday last week, Opera Rara launched its first Big Give with a goal of £15,000 to support the charity’s work with emerging artists. The Championing Emerging Talent campaign took place over 7 days and featured interviews with artists who have recently made their recording debuts as well as Opera Rara’s Artist Ambassadors, Ermonela Jaho and Michael Spyres, and Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi. These are available to view here.

In total, including Gift Aid and matching gifts, generous supporters from around the world donated over £30,000 to the cause, double the original goal. The donations support the unique recording and performance opportunities that emerging artists take part in. Since 1970, Opera Rara have championed the careers of emerging artists, giving them their studio recording debuts and bringing them to an international stage. As a charity that receives no public funding with an annual fundraising need of roughly £1M, the support of Opera Rara’s generous donors is the foundation of its success.

The company will continue to celebrate the debuts of incredible artists with a focus on recording firsts on its social media channels through the rest of the year. With daily tracks and artist features, followers and subscribers will enjoy hearing recent debut recordings as well as historic firsts from the Opera Rara’s past.

Opera Rara would like to thank the Big Give match funders Terry Sinclair, Peter Rosenthal and The Reed Foundation for their generosity.

At a time when opportunities seem to be dwindling, Opera Rara continue to give a chance to emerging artists to share their talent with the world through our internationally acclaimed recordings and performances. These artists leave a lasting legacy through their inspiring performances of rare and forgotten operas while learning from the best conductors, musicologists, language coaches and renowned singers in a professional studio setting.

Donate to Opera Rara’s 2023 Big Give Campaign here…

Since 1970, Opera Rara have championed the careers of emerging artists, giving them their studio recording debuts and bringing them to an international stage. We restore rare and forgotten operas, providing unique opportunities to artists, and we need your support to champion exceptional talent.

Situation
Starting a career is challenging. Starting a career as a world-class opera singer is a super-human feat. Artists are facing new and continued difficulties with fewer opportunities, lessening their chances of achieving a rewarding, robust career. Even through challenging times for our sector, Opera Rara continues to support emerging artists’ debuts, helping to form their reputation in the music world. But, creating world-class recording and performance opportunities is a costly endeavour.

Solution
We continue to facilitate debut studio recordings with exciting emerging international singers. We have expanded this work by launching a Salon Concerts series and by providing further opportunities for international exposure through our online events. In the recording studio, our emerging artists leave a lasting artistic legacy and learn from the best conductors, musicologists, linguists, and coaches in a professional studio setting. This is reflected in their highly acclaimed performances.

Campaign Aims
Provide performance and recording opportunities for emerging artists.

Continue programming our Salon Concerts for our emerging artists, providing the opportunity to work in venues across London and beyond.

Finance our production costs to continue providing the rare opportunity for artists to be a part of a truly unique studio recording experience.

Champion emerging artists in increased exposure, international features, reviews, broadcasts and streaming.

Provide an artistic legacy for emerging artists through their recordings.

Only with your support will we be able to continue to champion emerging artists and create unique opportunities to showcase exciting talent.

Opera Rara’s recording of Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde has received international praise, garnering accolades and critical acclaim. It has already received a Diamant d’Opéra in Opéra Magazine, has been included in Presto’s Top 25 for two months in a row, received 5-stars in BBC Music Magazine and has been selected as Editor’s Choice in both Gramophone and Limelight. Gramophone also selected it as recording of the month in its latest issue. Read more about its recent successes here:

They all inhabit their characters; and they all sing warmly and phrase with lightly worn style. At the centre of it all, Anne-Catherine Gillet (Zanetta) and Virginie Verrez (Raphaël) are as likeable a pair of lovebirds as you could ask for, Gillet sparkling brightly (but never too sweetly) over her livelier numbers while Verrez brings a lovely, plangent wistfulness to Raphaël’s gentler, more bittersweet arias. The aim, as so often with Offenbach, is to find just enough emotional truth to make you care for these characters, before returning to the laughter refreshed. In company like this, no lover of 19th-century opera could be blamed for succumbing to the charms of this – very much alive – Princesse de Trébizonde. Gramophone

Paul Daniel gets the style just right, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra – a real luxury in operetta – plays with equal measures of gusto and affection. The finales, in particular, sparkle with fun, and the hunting chorus, in which Offenbach channels Weber, bristles with rustic charm… As a bonus, the release includes seven numbers cut between Baden-Baden and the Paris premiere, all worth hearing. Smartly recorded, and with Opera Rara’s beautifully illustrated booklet and informative notes, this is definitely one for the collection. Limelight

Yet the hero of this splendid set is Paul Daniel, who knows exactly how to take risks with Offenbach’s tempos, the final galop leaving you completely winded. Daniel and the LPO remind us of how skilled an orchestrator Offenbach was, knowing how to pass a winning tune around the orchestra in a manner that keeps you on your toes. BBC Music Magazine

The English label Opera Rara is best known for its attention to 19th-century Italian bel canto, but from the start the French repertoire also received considerable attention, in particular the lesser-known repertoire of Jacques Offenbach. While this initially happened in performances with predominantly British soloists, the recordings now mainly aim for the most French-speaking line-up as possible, which mainly benefits the dialogues and thus the atmosphere. And let me immediately add that conductor Paul Daniel and Opera Rara have once again created a sparkling whole. The hilarious moments tumble over each other, but are alternated with the right touch of slightly sentimental lyricism in which Offenbach’s oeuvre also excels. Opus Klassiek

The major bonus on this recording is that the main cast are perfectly French-speaking and familiar with this repertoire. Under the direction of Paul Daniel, the music-making is always playful and never heavy with Anne-Catherine Gillet, Virginie Verrez and their colleagues succeeding in capturing the spirit of the travelling circus. Good humour and musical seriousness sit side by side in perfect symbiosis.  Opéra magazine

Conductor Paul Daniel is excellent at the head of the formidable London Philharmonic Orchestra which adorns itself in its most beautiful colours to make the spirit of this music shine… The cast is masterful in their French pronunciation, comedy, style, and wit… As always with Opera Rara, the editorial work is exemplary with an exhaustive booklet…. This boxset is truly a gold mine of completeness… and yet another immense musical, artistic and technical success. How wonderful to be able to immerse oneself in this lively and jubilant work, rich in twists and turns and comedy of all kinds in these dark times! Crescendo

Lucky for us, Opera Rara has given us a complete recording of this Offenbach work. The company cannot be commended enough for its continued efforts in bringing Offenbach’s music back to life through its dazzling recordings. At the head of the formidable London Philharmonic Orchestra, Paul Daniel brings panache and rhythmic precision to the great act endings. Amongst the cast, all very well balanced and theatrically engaging, one can’t help but highlight the fabulous singing of Anne-Catherine Gillet, bringing unquestionable style and a smile to our faces whilst listening to this operetta full of pure joy and emotion. El Mundo

The casting is luxurious, all singing in exemplary French. Before focusing on the soloists, it is essential to underline the role of the choir, in all its forms… Frequently interacting with the soloists, these Opera Rara singers show exceptional commitment, precision, balance and colour… The London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Paul Daniel, finds the tempi, flexibility, and rhythms essential to the life of the work. It does justice to the most authentic colours, as well as to the expression, from the languid tenderness of the solo violin to the ringing sounds of the hunt. The difficult and complex lottery scene is magnificently constructed. As for the spirit, it is omnipresent, from the winks to the crazy onomatopoeia. From the lightness to the final, wild twist, indifference is impossible. Forum Opéra

In this recording, Offenbach’s buffo opera proves highly enjoyable. Conductor Paul Daniel has a fine feel for the music and, without any exaggeration and with tempos that are always appropriate, provides a constant, very smooth musical flow so that the piece never slackens despite two hours of music. The main cast, all excellent, and the chorus are fully integrated into the orchestral sound. There is plenty for the chorus to do, and the Opera Rara Chorus is on fire. Text intelligibility is high, and anyone who can speak French will be able to follow the action effortlessly. Pizzicato

The performance sparkles. French-speaking singers dominate the cast, led by the gleaming mezzo of Virginie Verrez, who has fun with Prince Raphael’s bogus toothache, and Anne-Catherine Gillet’s attractively voiced Zanetta. The conductor, Paul Daniel, keeps the London Philharmonic Orchestra on its toes and the spoken dialogue, always a risky area, is very brief, animated and in French. Financial Times

With a sweetly absurd libretto and playful score, the work was created with a lot of care… the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Paul Daniel takes audible pleasure in the music and the cast, almost-exclusively French speaking, are top notch, led by Virginie Verrez and Anne-Catherine Gillet. La Libre Belgique

Last night, Opera Rara won its fourth International Opera Award for best Complete Opera Recording for its studio release of Mercadante’s Il proscritto (ORC62). Representing the company in Warsaw was Opera Rara’s Chief Executive Henry Little,  who said: ‘Our Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi, currently conducting at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, has been the champion and driving force behind this project from the very beginning when he discovered Mercadante’s original autograph score in the Naples Conservatory Library during the pandemic. Our profound thanks to Carlo for his leadership.’

To celebrate this achievement, the recording is now available at 25% off on the Opera Rara website with the code IOA2023 until midnight, Monday 13 November.

Set in Edinburgh at the time of Oliver Cromwell, Il proscritto had not been performed since its premiere in Naples in 1842. Rizzi galvanised Opera Rara to undertake the full restoration of the score in 2020, and two years later, with Ramón Vargas, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Irene Roberts and Elizabeth DeShong singing the four principal roles, Rizzi and Opera Rara, together with Britten Sinfonia, recorded the work in the studio and presented it at London’s Barbican. Opera Rara released the first ever recording of Il proscritto in April 2023 which was voted Critics’ Choice by an array of international publications including The Guardian, Opera News, BBC Music Magazine, Oper!, Presto Music and Opéra magazine:

‘Chief honours go to Carlo Rizzi who leads a lovingly detailed reading with plenty of orchestral pizazz provided by the Britten Sinfonia. Not only does he tease out the score’s numerous colors (Mercadante’s woodwind writing is especially memorable throughout), his sense of rubato and his supple way of ensuring that singers have expressive wiggle room is first-class. The chorus-writing is rewarding too, with the Opera Rara men splendid as disgruntled Royalist exiles in a nocturnal clifftop scene… the whole thing has been beautifully recorded with impressive depth to the sound and voices perfectly framed against the orchestra. With sleeve notes up to Opera Rara’s usual high standard, this is a thoroughly recommendable rediscovery.’ Opera News

Opera Rara remain record holders in the Complete Opera Recording category having won three times in the past for Offenbach’s Offenbach’s Fantasio (ORC51) in 2015, Donizetti’s Les Martyrs (ORC52) in 2016 and Rossini’s Semiramide (ORC57) in 2019.

 

In September, Opera Rara begins its three-year Donizetti Song Project, an ambitious initiative which will see the recording and performance of nearly 200 solo songs by the composer. The project is launched by world-renowned bel canto specialist, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, in concert with Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi at London’s Wigmore Hall on 9 September at 1:00PM. Originally planned as a duo recital with baritone Etienne Dupuis, Brownlee will now present a solo programme featuring works by Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Schubert.

Italian baritone Nicola Alaimo replaces Dupuis in the recording of the baritone songs in the Donizetti Song Project, returning after his performance earlier this year as Murena in Donizetti’s L’esule di Roma. The Times called his performance “enthralling … idiomatic in Donizetti’s songful lines.” A recital with Alaimo will be announced at a later date.

The programme for Lawrence Brownlee and Carlo Rizzi’s recital on 9 September is:

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
“Lungi ne vai”
“Non v’è piu barbaro”
“Malvina”
“Non giova il sospirar”
“Sovra il remo”
“O anime” (unfinished)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Vier Canzonen, D.688
“Non t’accostar all’urna”
“Guarda che bianca luna”
“Da quel sembiante”
“Mio ben ricordati”

Gaetano Donizetti
“Ella riposa”
“Lamento”
“V’era un dì”
“Me voglio fà ‘na casa”

Donizetti’s Contemporaries
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
La lontananza
Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835)
Ricordanza
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Lo spazzacamino
Brindisi

Gaetano Donizetti
“L’ora del ritrovo”
“Tu porgesti”
Il sospiro
“Corri destrier”

Tickets for the recital can be found at www.wigmore-hall.org.uk. For those who have already purchased tickets to the recital with Lawrence Brownlee, Etienne Dupuis and Carlo Rizzi, these are still valid. If you no longer wish to attend, please contact the box office to arrange an exchange or refund (boxoffice@wigmore-hall.org.uk / 020 7935 2141).

Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde
Available on 22 September, pre-order from 25 August
Pre-release track 1: Raphael and Zanetta’s duet, ‘La voila!’ – available 25 August
Pre-release track 2: Act 3, Ronde des pages, ‘Faisons notre ronde’ – available 8 September

Register for the 21 September online recording launch event here.

On Friday 22 September, Opera Rara release Jacques Offenbach’s comic operetta La Princesse de Trébizonde with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) conducted by French opera specialist Paul Daniel. This latest release marks the premiere studio recording of musicologist Jean-Christophe Keck’s new critical edition of the three-act Paris version from December 1869. It also includes previously unpublished extracts from the original two-act Baden-Baden version first heard in July 1869 which were found fortuitously by Keck in one ‘magic wardrobe’ within the Offenbach family estate.

Whilst regarded as the father of the operetta, most famous for writing the ever-popular Galop infernal immortalized as the French Cancan from Orpheus in the Underwold and the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann, Keck’s tireless unearthing of Offenbach rarities for Boosey & Hawkes’ complete ‘Offenbach Edition Keck’, has helped reposition the composer’s legacy as more than just one of fun and frivolity. Offenbach’s prolific output and mastery of his craft showed how mass appeal could go hand in hand with high-quality music making; and beneath the surface of even the silliest of plots could be reflections both philosophical and political. The travelling circus community of La Princesse de Trébizonde attain great wealth and status over-night yet rather than happiness associated with this social mobility, boredom quickly sets in followed by a yearning for their former life of simple play and entertainment.

Opera Rara, best known for its restoration and revival of bel canto operas, has also been a champion of Offenbach’s works since its founding in 1970. In February, the company brought out its latest Classics boxset: Celebrating Offenbach (ORB3) featuring remastered studio recordings of Robinson Crusoe (ORC7) and Vert-Vert (ORC41), alongside Entre Nous (ORR243), a selection of rare arias, duets and ensembles from more than twenty of the composer’s lesser-known works. Further Opera Rara recordings of Offenbach include Christopher Columbus (ORC2) and Fantasio (ORC51) which won an International Opera Award in 2015.

The LPO, Paul Daniel and a hand-picked cast of singers came together in September 2022 to give a one-off performance of La Princesse de Trébizonde at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall following a week in the recording studio. For both the performance and recording, Offenbach’s original dialogue was edited by Jeremy Sams: ‘Paul Daniel brought it all to iridescent life with elastic phrasing and masterly control of rubato that made room for moments of dreamy romance amidst the musical mayhem. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, a real luxury in comic operetta, was on magnificent form… A scintillating concert, then, and one that whets the appetite for Opera Rara’s recording of the work’ (Musical America).

Continuing its year-long celebration of Donizetti’s 225^th birthday, on Saturday 9 September, Opera Rara launch its Donizetti Song Project at Wigmore Hall. Led by Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi, the multi-year initiative will see Donizetti’s entire corpus of songs – nearly 200 in total of which many have never been heard before – brought to life through performances and recordings. In May, Opera Rara presented L’esule di Roma, the 27^th complete opera by Donizetti to be revived by the company at Cadogan Hall led by Rizzi with Britten Sinfonia.

West Green House Opera brings to life Offenbach’s 1867 version of Robinson Crusoe in a concert staging by Thomas Guthrie. Sung in English in a translation by Opera Rara co-founder Don White and loosely based on Daniel Defoe’s classic, Robinson Crusoe is the tale of a hopeless romantic who runs away to sea only to be shipwrecked. The performance is one night only Friday 28th July 2023 at West Green House’s Theatre on the Lake. More information can be found at www.westgreenhouseopera.co.uk.

Robinson Crusoe is one of three features on Opera Rara’s latest Classics release, Celebrating Offenbach. Although he wrote over 100 operas during his extraordinary career, only a fraction of Offenbach’s output is regularly performed today.

This boxset provides an introduction to more than twenty of the composer’s lesser-known works, including the complete studio recordings of Vert-Vert and Robinson Crusoe, as well as a selection from some of his finest works, all performed by an impressive group of international stars including Jennifer Larmore, Toby Spence, Loïc Félix and Laura Claycomb.

Remastered to the best audio quality and featuring a specially commissioned essay by specialist Marco Ladd, these recordings will enchant Offenbach fans with their subtle charm and humor.

The boxset is available at www.opera-rara.com.

Opera Rara’s acclaimed recording of Mercadante’s Il proscritto will be broadcast as part of the Chicago network’s prestigious Opera Series, and syndicated across the USA.

Broadcast date: Saturday 8 July at Midday (US Central time / 6 hours behind UK time)
Available to listen live or on demand worldwide

For the first time, Opera Rara will be featured in a prestigious North American radio series that broadcasts operas from the world’s finest stages. The WFMT Opera Series, which regularly features performances from New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opera, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala and Vienna State Opera, will broadcast Opera Rara’s performance of the bel canto rarity, Mercadante’s Il proscritto, on Saturday 8 July. Featuring interviews with Opera Rara’s Artistic Director, Carlo Rizzi, as well as musicologist Roger Parker and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong, the broadcast will be syndicated to over 60 radio stations across the USA and heard in over 350 markets, bringing Opera Rara’s performance to nearly 500,000 people.

The Chicago-based classical music radio station, WFMT, is accessible via broadcast at 98.7FM (in the Chicago area), streaming live worldwide at wfmt.com, and on the WFMT app. The recording, which has been critically acclaimed in the UK and across Europe, features Carlo Rizzi conducting Britten Sinfonia, the Opera Rara Chorus and an outstanding cast including Ramón Vargas, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Irene Roberts, Elizabeth DeShong, Sally Matthews, Goderdzi Janelidze, Alessandro Fisher, Susana Gaspar and Niall Anderson.

Estlin Usher, Director of WFMT comments:
“We at the WFMT Network are absolutely thrilled to feature Opera Rara’s stunning Il proscritto in this year’s WFMT Opera Series. Opera Rara’s mission of bringing to light unknown, recently-rediscovered works is such an important service to the opera repertoire, and we are privileged to champion their hard work and to bring their talent and ambition to opera listeners across the United States. I am certain after these broadcasts there will be new fans of Mercadante and Opera Rara in the near future!”

Henry Little, Chief Executive of Opera Rara adds:
“Our mission at Opera Rara is to search for lost or unjustly forgotten operas, to restore them through new performing editions and to present them to the world through studio recordings and live performances. Mercadante’s Il proscritto was only performed a few times in 1842 after its premiere in Naples, following which it remained overlooked and forgotten in the Naples Conservatory library. What we found through the restoration process was a gem of an opera that had been lost due to time and circumstance. For this work to be received so well by modern audiences and to be heard by hundreds of thousands of listeners in the US and worldwide honours the brilliance of this opera and the commitment and effort which the Opera Rara team, led by Maestro Carlo Rizzi, have invested to give Il proscritto the place we feel it deserves in the opera repertory of 2023 and beyond.”

When the world shut down in March 2020, the discovery online of Mercadante’s original autograph score of Il proscritto in the Naples Conservatory Library proved a lifeline for Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi. Set in Edinburgh at the time of Oliver Cromwell, Il proscritto had not been performed since its première in Naples in 1842. Rizzi galvanised Opera Rara to undertake the full restoration of the score and, two years later, he conducted Il proscritto in London.

As Musical America commented: “This unearthed gem proves that Mercadante is well worth investigating… Rizzi, a doyen of Italian conductors, was in his element, leading the excellent Britten Sinfonia in a thoroughly involving account of the score. In a graceful and detailed reading, he teased out Mercadante’s often ravishing orchestral colours, while ensuring the music never lacked for fire in its belly. The outstanding cast was up to Opera Rara’s usual high standard.”

Edited by Opera Rara’s Artistic Dramaturg Roger Parker in collaboration with Ian Schofield, Il proscritto is the fourth opera by Mercadante – following Orazi e Curiazi (ORC12), Emma d’Antiochia (ORC26) and Virginia (ORC39) – to be restored by Opera Rara. The new performing edition is now available worldwide through Casa Ricordi, distributor of Opera Rara’s editorial catalogue of more than 30 complete operas. The performance of Il proscritto was realised with Britten Sinfonia with whom Opera Rara previously collaborated on a concert and recording of Donizetti’s Il Paria (ORC60) in 2019.

The US Broadcast of Mercadante’s Il proscritto is generously made possibly by support from Islée Oliva Salinas and Michael Buckley.