In the third instalment in our series highlighting particular jewels from our catalogue of over 60 full length opera recordings, our Chief Executive, Henry Little, chooses our July Album of the Month. In the below video, he shares why Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini is so special to him.
Recorded at BBC Maida Vale Studios, London, May 2016
“Bellini’s first opera is a belter!” Classical Music
Sunday Times Album of the Week
We’re offering 50% off this title in our online shop for the entire month of July. Click here take advantage of this fantastic time limited offer’.
Opera Rara releases Bellini’s first opera Adelson e Salvini, written in 1825 while the composer was still a student at the Naples Conservatory. Inspired by Baculard d’Arnaud’s 1772 series of novellas, Les Épreuves du sentiment, Adelson e Salvini was so popular that the students of the Naples Conservatory performed it every Sunday for a year and its impact was such that the intendant of the Teatro di San Carlo immediately commissioned Bellini’s first professional opera.
Misha Kiria Cardenio Albina Shagimuratova Eleonora Fabio Capitanucci Kaidamà André Henriques Bartolomeo Heather Lowe Marcella René Barbera Fernando Opera Rara Chorus Britten Sinfonia Carlo Rizzi conductor
We’re delighted to announce that our studio recording of our new edition of Donizetti’s il furioso all’isola si San Domingo will now take place in July 2021 and that the concert performance will be on Thursday 8th July at the Barbican Centre in London. I’m especially pleased that the majority of the cast who were to have sung with us in June this year will return, including Albina Shagimuratova whose performances with us in Semiramide and il Paria were so memorable. We welcome back René Barbera and Misha Kiria who made their debuts last year in il Paria. This will be Carlo Rizzi’s first full opera recording with us and we can’t wait to get started on our 27th compete Donizetti restoration.
If you booked previously for the original date, you will have priority booking from 1st June at 10am. Booking opens for Barbican Members from 3rd June, and then on General Sale from 5th June. To learn more about the project, book tickets, or add the date to your diary, please click one of the links below.
In the second instalment in our series highlighting particular jewels from our catalogue of over 60 full length opera recordings, our Artistic Dramaturge, Roger Parker, chooses our June Album of the Month. Below, he shares his insights into Donizetti’s Le Duc d’Albe.
Recorded at Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats, Manchester June 2015
“…care, fine preparation and attention to detail in the musical execution, marvellously evident from first note to last” Opera Magazine
Opera category nomination for 2017 International Classical Music Awards
Opera category nomination for 2017 BBC Music Magazine Awards
Sunday Times Album of the Week
BBC Music Magazine Opera Choice
Limelight Editor’s Choice
Donizetti’s Le Duc d’Albe was an ill-starred work for the composer. In 1840, and at the height of his powers, he had written more than half of it in full score for Paris’s great theatre, the Opéra; but then obstacles began to be put in his way, obstacles that continued for the rest of the tragically short time that remained to him. There are stories that, even during his miserable last years sequestered in an asylum outside Paris, he was wont to rave and rant about his half-finished opera. In this context, it’s not without embarrassment that I remember the period of the Opera Rara recording as one of happy collaboration. I had done what I could to edit what Donizetti had left, but the conductor Sir Mark Elder, as always, was forensically engaged from the very start. Early on we decided that we would only record the first two acts (by far the most complete); and also that we would commission a completion of the missing prelude and recitatives from English National Opera’s Martin Fitzpatrick. Many an afternoon was then spent by the three of us in Mark’s Highgate house, arguing line by line, note by note, about how this or that passage should be realised. When it came to the recording, I think we all felt a sense of pride and ownership. Would Donizetti have approved? I sometimes like to think so; but I’m sure he would have been amazed at the time and effort it all took: in the months we spent on Le Duc d’Albe, he would have polished off four or five operas, doubtless with a couple of dozen songs and some cantatas on the side, all the time dashing in coaches from this to that city, writing streams of letters to all concerned, rehearsing with loving care his old and new creations.
There’s never been a better time to enjoy the treasures from our catalogue of over 60 recordings. To make it easy for you, we’ve put together a 50th anniversary playlist of our all time favourite Opera Rara pieces, chosen by our Artistic Director, Carlo Rizzi, our Artistic Dramaturg, Roger Parker, the wider Opera Rara team and you, our wonderful supporters. Thank you for telling us your favourite tracks.
It’s available to stream for free, or you can download the whole 50 for the bargain price of just £5. If you like what you hear, you could choose to help us bring more of these masterpieces to life by making a donation from as little as £50. This would be especially appreciated in these tough times. Click here to enjoy!
Launching a new series highlighting particular jewels from our catalogue of over 60 full length opera recordings, our Artistic Director, Carlo Rizzi chooses our May Album of the month. Below, he shares his insights into Rossini’s Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra.
“I think that you will discover that this Opera demonstrates the genius of Rossini”.
Recorded at St Clement’s Church, London March 2002
Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra (1815) was the first of the nine Rossini Neapolitan operas written for the Teatro San Carlo. The works Rossini composed were hailed (and have been ever since) as some of the most remarkable ever to be composed for the lyric stage.
The Plot: While campaigning in Scotland, the Queen’s inamorato, the Earl of Leicester, has fallen in love with and married Matilde, unaware that she is a child of the hated Mary, Queen of Scots. Unwisely, he confides his dilemma to Norfolk who stirs up a hornets’ nest of emotional intrigue by revealing all to the queen.
“Even by Opera Rara’s standards and characteristic zest for dusting off neglected pieces, this new recording must rare highly in the company’s catalogue” BBC Music Magazine
If you would like to know more, you can read Jeremy Commons’ programme note here. You can also listen to the overture here.
We’re offering 50% off this title in our online shop for the entire month of May. Click below to take advantage of this fantastic time limited offer’.
I hope this message finds you and those close to you, wherever you are in the world safe, well, healthy and that you are surviving, even thriving, as best you can in these challenging circumstances.
Like all opera companies, the effect of Covid 19 on Opera Rara has been enormous. We’ve had to take some tough decisions. We’ve done this because we want our brilliant and unique organisation to emerge from this strong, resilient and able to face the future with confidence.
This September, we will be releasing Ermonela Jaho’s debut recital recording of arias by among others Verdi, Puccini, Leoncavallo and Mascagni championed by the great 19th century singer, Rosina Storchio. Watch this space for more information.
We were set to promote our latest Donizetti rediscovery Il Paria next month. It’s a recording that we’re all proud of. We’ve decided to postpone the release to January 2021. We will be in touch with you with more details as we get closer to that date.
This summer we were poised to start our studio opera recording of Donizetti’s Il furioso all’ isola di San Domingo with our new Artistic Director: Carlo Rizzi. We’ve assembled a stellar cast including Albina Shagimuratova following her acclaimed performance of Il Paria at the Barbican last summer. The recording and concert at the Barbican on 22nd June has been postponed. We are determined to bring this piece brilliantly and thrillingly to life at the earliest opportunity. As soon as we have confirmed new dates for the project, we will let you know.
During these weeks of confinement, may I suggest that there’s never been a better time to explore the amazing range of wonderful operatic masterpieces that we have rediscovered in the last fifty years? From Donizetti’s Rosmonda d’Inghilterra when a young Renée Fleming made her first recording in 1994 with us, to the charming comedy of Offenbach’s Fantasio in 2015, or the searing drama of Zazà with Ermonela Jaho in 2016 or the beauty of our acclaimed interpretation of Rossini’s Semiramide in 2018, there’s never been a better time to enjoy the incredible range of recordings from the comfort and safety of your own home. All our titles can be downloaded at opera-rara.com or streamed on all the usual platforms. For now, we continue to take CD orders from our shop and we will get these to you as soon as we can.
This year is Opera Rara’s 50th Birthday. Whether you are a major donor, or a Friend, an industry partner or a buying customer, thank you so much for your support which is crucial to our work. Your help is going to be more important than ever to secure our future. We’re a charity and we don’t receive public funding. Every pound we spend on our artistic programme needs to be raised privately. You can become a Friend for as little as £100 a year. Please use the ‘Donate’ button to make a contribution. Thank you.
Since 1970, Opera Rara has built a reputation for artistic excellence based on a single-minded ambition to bring rare operatic jewels for current and future audiences to enjoy. All of us are resolved to continue our pioneering work. With your help and partnership, we will succeed.
One of the unfortunate consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for Opera Rara has been on our plan to release Il Paria on 15th May. As you can imagine, the Coronavirus crisis has had a massive effect on supply chains as well as customer buying habits, not just here in Europe but across the world. We’ve been talking at length with our partner, Warner Classics, who distributes our recordings worldwide and we’ve taken the hard decision to postpone the release until January 2021.
We feel that this will be the most productive and hopefully the safest time to bring the recording out. By then, we hope that restrictions in place all around the world will have been lifted and a sense of ’normality’ will have returned to our lives. We were looking forward to sharing this great masterpiece with our colleagues, friends, and supporters and we are sorry that we won’t have the chance to do that for some time. We hope you understand that the decision to delay the release is taken because we want it to be a great success it deserves to be.
We will share the exact release date in due course. Until then, the most important thing is to keep safe, well and healthy. These are quite extraordinary, challenging and disruptive times that we’re living through. And, in this climate of uncertainty, we must all look after ourselves and each other in as caring a way that we can.
Le Willis has been nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award!
Public voting ends on 19 February and the Awards ceremony will take place in London on 22 April at Kings Place. . If you want to support Opera Rara’s recording of Puccini’s first opera, please do cast your vote and share this link with as many as people as possible:
Many congrats to our friends and colleagues at Bru Zane for the nomination of their recording of Gounod’s Faust, to Signum Classics for Purcell’s King Arthur and to all the other nominees.
Last few tickets for Ermonela Jaho’s recital at the Wigmore Hall on February 2nd!
The acclaimed soprano Ermonela Jaho, making an exclusive London concert appearance as well as her Wigmore Hall recital debut, explores music championed by the renowned Italian soprano Rosina Storchio, creator of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Leoncavallo’s Zazà and Mascagni’s Lodoletta. As well as recreating Storchio’s operatic repertoire for today’s audience, she will explore the salon pieces of the period, including rare but beautiful songs by Bellini, Verdi, Toscanini and Tosti.
Book here for Ermonela Jaho’s recital at the Wigmore Hall on Sunday 2 February, 19.30
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Come to Ermonela Jaho’s Q&A at the Foyles bookshop on Charring Cross road on Saturday 23 November at 17.30!
Get an exclusive insight into the artistic life of an opera lead as soprano star Ermonela Jaho joins us for an evening celebrating her new recording of Puccini’s first opera Le Willis in association with Opera Rara and Warner Classics.
In a talk hosted by Gramophone Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief James Jolly, Jaho will discuss her unique take on Pucini’s supernatural melodrama, as well as her upcoming performance as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello at the Royal Opera House—opening up on what it means to be an international opera singer.
Jaho will sing a live extract from Le Willis and the event will be followed by a Q&A and signing.
Book here for Ermonela Jaho’s Q&A on Saturday 23 November, 17.30
L’Ange de Nisida won the awards for “Best Recording” at the 2019 OPER! Awards. The prize was presented on Saturday 21 September, during a ceremony at the Konzerthaus Berlin.
Here is a short report of the jury’s verdict: BEST COMPLETE OPERA RECORDING for Gaetano Donizetti: L’ange de Nisida
“Musical excavations are not that uncommon anymore, but even the baroque period now rarely yields truly worthwhile pieces or ground-breaking discoveries. Which makes the achievement of the label Opera Rara all the more noteworthy: L’ange de Nisida is nothing less than a chief work by Gaetano Donizetti, brought to light again and brought to resounding life too in this enthusiastic live recording.”
Congratulations to all the fantastic people involved in the recording ! In particular, to Sir Mark Elder, Joyce El-Khoury, David Junghoon Kim, Vito Priante, Laurent Naouri, Evgeni Stavinsky, the orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Opera Chorus.
Opera Rara had given the world premiere of this lost Donizetti masterpiece in July 2018 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Written in 1839 for the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris, the theatre went bankrupt and the opera was left unperformed until 2018! Restored and brought thrillingly back to life, this is a fascinating and passionate drama, full of exciting vocal writing, composed by Donizetti near the end of his life.
Click here to listen to some extracts and read the synopsis of Donizetti’s L’Ange de Nisida
