OPERA RARAand
THE HALLÉ ANNOUNCE
UK PREMIERE OF OFFENBACH’S BARKOUF
4 October 2026, 4pm GMT at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Opera Rara and The Hallé today announced their next collaboration: the UK premiere of Offenbach’s political satire Barkouf,about a dog who is appointed governor of a fictitious place called “Lahore”, whose population has reached its wits’ end with the corruption and incompetence of successive leaders. Using musicologist Jean-Christophe Keck’s critical edition of Offenbach’s 1860 opéra-bouffe, Opera Rara reunites with conductor Paul Daniel who led the charity’s award-winning revival of Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde (ORC63).
Anne-Catherine Gillet, Antoinette Dennefeld and Katia Ledoux, who all appeared in La Princesse de Trébizonde, are joined by Opera Rara newcomers Mathias Vidal, François Piolino, Philippe Talbot and Thibault de Damas. Yann Beuron returns to Opera Rara following his appearance on Wekerlin’s La Laitière de Trianon (ORR245). A week prior to the performance on 4 October 2026 in Manchester, Opera Rara and The Hallé, together with the English National Opera Chorus, will make the first-ever recording of Barkouf.
Opera Rara and The Hallé’s latest collaboration is the original 1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra (ORC65) conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Following a concert performance in Manchester in April 2024, the first ever studio recording of the original Simon Boccanegra was released a year later to critical acclaim. To date the recording has been nominated in the International Opera Awards, Gramophone Classical Music Awards, International Classical Music Awards and voted as one of Presto Music’s Top 100 Recordings of the Year.
Making his recording debut as Simon Boccanegra was Argentinian baritone Germán Enrique Alcántara, who launched Opera Rara’s 55th season in October with a Salon Series recital featuring rare Italian and Argentinian songs at London’s Temple Music Foundation. Performing with pianist Anna Tilbrook, Germán’s programme included a selection of songs by Donizetti chosen together with Repertoire Consultant Roger Parker who, since its launch at the start of the 2023/24 season, has curated Opera Rara’s multi-year Donizetti Song Project.
In September, Opera Rara released Volumes 5 and 6 (ORR258) of its Donizetti Songs recording cycle with Artist Ambassador Ermonela Jaho and Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi; and just last week, two more songs featuring Sarah Dufresne, a recent graduate of the Royal Ballet and Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artist scheme, were released digitally. The cycle continues until next summer with the releases of Volume 7 with Rosa Feola and Carlo Rizzi in March, and Volume 8 with Nicola Alaimo and Rizzi in June. On 16 June 2026, Opera Rara presents its final ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital at Wigmore Hall with Alaimo and Rizzi to celebrate the culmination of the cycle. The charity’s new international partnership with the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo, presenting the complete solo songs over three years with the festival’s young artists, continues in autumn 2026.
In two days’ time, on 5 December, Carlo Rizzi and Ermonela Jaho will appear at London’s Barbican Centre for Opera Rara’s revival of the final, 1921 version of Puccini’s La rondine, marking the first time the complete third version has been presented in nearly a century. Together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, Rizzi and Jaho have just spent a week in the studio recording this work for release in October 2026. Both artists can also be heard in forthcoming episodes of Opera Rara’s podcast series Lives in Song: Puccini, hosted by Flora Willson, which launched on 28 November. The first season of Lives in Song, focusing on the life of Donizetti, is available to listen to now on all streaming platforms.