Albums Meyerbeer, G.: Margherita d'Anjou | ||
Donizetti le duc d albe on opera rara
Opera Rara is a British non-profit recording company, founded in the early 1970s by American Patric Schmid and Englishman Don White to promote concerts of rare and/or forgotten operas by bel canto era composers such as Italian composers Gaetano Donizetti, Giovanni Pacini, Saverio Mercadante, and Federico Ricci, as well as French composers of the 1830s forward such as Giacomo Meyerbeer.
Contents
- Donizetti le duc d albe on opera rara
- Fantasio opera rara
- Discography
- World premiere recordings
- References
The company's activities were later expanded to include the "Verdi Originals" series, which included the BBC's presentations of original versions of operas by Giuseppe Verdi which are better known in later, revised versions. An example of this group would be Verdi's Macbeth.
For many years Opera Rara was sponsored heavily by the Peter Moores Foundation. In 2011 Stephen Revell, the managing director of Opera Rara announced that conductor Mark Elder would join as new artistic director.
Fantasio opera rara
Discography
The label's first "complete" opera, Meyerbeer's Il crociato in Egitto, was performed in concert in 1972 and featured the soprano Janet Price. It was the work's first revival in over 100 years, and was of such great interest to record collectors that it was almost immediately issued by several "pirates". Donizetti's Maria Padilla (again featuring Price) followed soon afterwards.
Other early concerts included Maria de Rudenz, Torquato Tasso, and Rosmonda d'Inghilterra (Donizetti), L'Etoile du Nord (Meyerbeer), as well as two Mercadante operas: Orazi e Curiazi and Virginia. All of these represented the first performances of these works in many years. Concert performances, leading to the issuance of recordings by the company, continue to be given at London's Southbank Centre with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Prominent amongst conductors of these works is David Parry and Mark Elder.
In 1977, Opera Rara issued its first recording of Donizetti's Ugo, conte di Parigi, with a cast including Janet Price, Yvonne Kenny, Della Jones, and Christian du Plessis.
Other singers who have participated in Opera Rara's recordings include Renée Fleming, Jennifer Larmore, Joyce El-Khoury, Angela Meade, Nelly Miricioiu, Vesselina Kasarova, Chris Merritt, Marco Lazzara, Mark Stone, James Westman, Bruce Ford, and Anthony Michaels-Moore.
In March 2014, Opera Rara celebrated its 50th complete opera recording with the release of Donizetti’s Rita (Deux hommes et une femme). Conducted by Artistic Director Sir Mark Elder, Rita was the first studio recording of the newly restored critical edition of the score.
World premiere recordings
The label's biggest contribution to classical recordings is the large number of "world premiere recordings" in their catalogue. Listed by composer, these include:
The recordings indicated by one asterisk (*) are excerpts.
The recordings indicated by two asterisks (**) are technically not world premiere recordings, since they had been performed earlier by Opera Rara, and these earlier performances were issued by pirates. However, they are included in this list since the world premiere recording is still an Opera Rara performance.