OPERA RARA
On Saturday 2 November, Opera Rara return to Wigmore Hall for its third ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital. Following a week recording together in the studio, Rosa Feola will be accompanied by Carlo Rizzi at the piano.
Gramophone’s Label of the Year 2024 – On 2 October Opera Rara was announced as Gramophone’s Label of the Year 2024. Previous winners in this category include BIS, Deutsche Grammophon, Alpha Classics, Pentatone and Harmonia Mundi.
Representing the company at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2024 ceremony in London was Opera Rara’s Chief Executive Henry Little who said: ‘Our history goes back 54 years to Opera Rara’s foundation in 1970 by two visionary men: Patric Schmid and Don White. After a chance meeting with Joan Sutherland, their mission of restoring, recording, performing and promoting the great lost and forgotten operas of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries began. This artistic undertaking has been championed by many great conductors, musicologists, orchestras and singers; their courage and commitment to Opera Rara is exemplary as they learn and perform music that hasn’t been heard sometimes in more than 200 years.’
Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi sent a message from Berlin where he is currently conducting at Deutsche Oper: ‘It has been one of my greatest honours and artistic achievements to lead Opera Rara as Artistic Director. This award is the culmination of decades of work, with every recording and restoration done with utmost care and incredible passion. Thank you, Gramophone, for this recognition.’
2024 has proven to be quite a year already for Opera Rara, whose list of awards has now grown to include OPER! Awards Best Opera Recording and OPUS KLASSIK Best Opera Recording for Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde (ORC63). The company’s latest complete opera recording, Donizetti’s L’esule di Roma (ORC64) conducted by Carlo Rizzi, was also nominated for a 2024 International Opera Award in the CD (Complete Opera) category.
Opera Rara is a London based charity and recording label that has been at the forefront of musical archaeology for over 50 years. Distributed worldwide by Warner Classics, the company’s catalogue comprises over 100 titles including more than 60 full length opera recordings. Opera Rara’s work has been pivotal in the revaluation of the legacies of composers such as Donizetti, Pacini, Offenbach and Mercadante. In 2019, Carlo Rizzi became Artistic Director, and in 2022, Ermonela Jaho and Michael Spyres were named Artist Ambassadors. Renée Fleming, who made her complete opera recording debut with the company in 1994, is Opera Rara’s Honorary Patron.
Last September, Opera Rara launched its Donizetti Song Project, an ambitious multi-year initiative to record and perform Donizetti’s entire corpus of solo songs, nearly 200 in total, many of them never been heard in modern times. To date, Opera Rara has given 23 modern-day Donizetti song premieres to the public, at London’s Wigmore Hall or as part of its Salon Series for emerging artists. Eight recital albums are planned over the coming seasons.
4 October marked the release of Volumes 1 and 2 of the Donizetti Song Project, featuring 28 tenor songs with Lawrence Brownlee and 26 baritone songs with Nicola Alaimo. Both singers are accompanied by Carlo Rizzi at the piano. On 3 October all three artists took part in a digital launch, which was followed by the YouTube premieres of both releases.