2024 has proven to be quite a year for Opera Rara: on 2 October it received the prestigious Gramophone Label of the Year Award, placing it alongside previous category winners including Deutsche Grammophon, Alpha Classics and Pentatone. Elsewhere this year, the charity’s list of accolades grew further when both the OPER! and OPUS KLASSIK Awards named its release of Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde their Best Opera Recordings.
Following the launch of its Donizetti Song Project at the start of the 2023/24 season, Opera Rara in October released Volumes 1 and 2 of its new recording cycle featuring Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi on the piano, tenor Lawrence Brownlee and baritone Nicola Alaimo. A month later, Opera Rara returned to London’s Wigmore Hall for its third ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital with soprano Rosa Feola, Rizzi and harpist Sally Pryce. The second recital in May featured the charity’s Artist Ambassador Ermonela Jaho and marked Opera Rara’s first-ever live stream.
Thursday 16 January
Lives in Song: Donizetti – Episode 2 YouTube Stream
In this first series of Lives in Song, hosts Flora Willson and Roger Parker put the music of Gaetano Donizetti under the microscope and tell the story of his life through some of the songs he composed. Episode 2 turns back the clock to 1821 and, taking the song “D’un genio che m’accende” as a starting point, examines Donizetti’s early music in light of the influences of his teacher Simon Mayr and fellow Italian composer Gioachino Rossini.
Thursday 23 January
Lluís Calvet i Pey Salon Series Recital
Opera Rara’s second Salon Series recital for emerging artists this season features baritone Lluís Calvet i Pey who made his recording debut in the charity’s 2024 release of Donizetti’s L’esule di Roma. Later in the season, the series will feature soprano Ellie Neate on 25 March, and mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries on 8 May.
Friday 21 February
Donizetti Songs Vols. 3&4 releases with Michael Sypres & Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Opera Rara’s Artist Ambassador Michael Spyres and mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux join the impressive roster of artists featured in Opera Rara’s Donizetti Songs recording cycle which launched with albums from tenor Lawrence Brownlee and baritone Nicola Alaimo. On Volume 3, Spyres performs with Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi; and on Volume 4, Lemieux performs with pianist Giulio Zappa.
Monday 10 March
Michael Spyres, Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Giulio Zappa at Cadogan Hall
To celebrate the release of Volumes 3 and 4 of its Donizetti Song recording cycle, Opera Rara present Michael Spyres, Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Giulio Zappa at London’s Cadogan Hall. Alongside lost and forgotten songs by Donizetti featured on their albums, Spyres, Lemieux and Zappa will also perform works by his contemporary Hector Berlioz.
Friday 21 March
1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra recording release
Opera Rara, together with former Artistic Director Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé, release 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. Germán Enrique Alcántara takes up the title role and is joined by soprano Eri Nakamura as Amelia, bass William Thomas as Jacopo Fiesco and Iván Ayón-Rivas as Gabriele Adorno. The opera was a recorded a week prior to a concert performance at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in April 2024.