Described by the Financial Times as ‘flawless’ in her Wigmore Hall debut, Italian soprano Rosa Feola returns in a recital with Opera Rara’s Artistic Director and pianist Carlo Rizzi. As a part of Opera Rara’s multi-year Donizetti Song Project, the recital features lost and forgotten songs by Gaetano Donizetti as well as selections by his contemporaries. This initiative will see Opera Rara record and perform the composer’s entire solo song output – nearly 200 in total, of which many have never been heard before.

Promoted by Opera Rara, this recital continues the multi-year Donizetti Song Project, which will see the recording and performance of the composer’s nearly 200 solo songs. Donizetti is currently known for a mere 10-15 solo songs with piano. These are frequently performed and enjoyed; but recent research by Roger Parker, Opera Rara’s Repertoire Consultant and an internationally known expert on Donizetti, has revealed that the composer wrote nearly 200 such songs, a great many of them completely unknown. In the Donizetti Song Project, Opera Rara plans to create a new edition of the songs and then record them in eight individual albums. This ambitious programme will include live performances by the internationally renowned artists featured on each album, as well as a “salon” series for emerging artists. The Donizetti Song Project, one of the most ambitious in Opera Rara’s 50-year history, aims to add a substantial body of work to the solo song repertoire through recordings and performances, making a claim that Donizetti is one of the genre’s most significant composers in the nineteenth century.

PROGRAMME:

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Una vergine donzella
Vieni, la barca è pronta
Fra l’erbe cosparse
Or che l’età ne invita
Sono nata in Oriente
No: tu non m’hai tradita!

arr. Albert Zabel (1834-1910)
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor

Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886)
Sonetto di Dante

Ciro Pinsuti (1829-1888)
Sonetto di Dante

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Quattro rispetti toscani
1. Quando nesceste voi
2. Venitelo a vedere ‘l mi’ piccino
3. Viene di là, lontan lontano
4. Razzolan, sopra l’aja, le galline

This recital is supported by Colwinston Charitable Trust, Cockayne Grants for the Arts and London Community Foundation.

The Donizetti Song Project is supported by the Opera Rara Donizetti Syndicate.

With special thanks to Opera Rara’s Donizetti Patron, His Excellency The Italian Ambassador.