A boxset dedicated to the works of Jacques Offenbach is Opera Rara Classics’ next release. Remastered to the best audio quality, the complete studio recordings of Vert-Vert (ORC41) and Robinson Crusoe (ORC7) will be released alongside Entre Nous (ORR243), a selection of rare arias, duets and ensembles from more than twenty of the composer’s lesser-known works. This Opera Rara Classics boxset – following Donizetti in the 1830s and Rossini in 1819 – includes a specially commissioned essay by musicologist Marco Ladd and features, amongst others, Yvonne

Kenny, Jennifer Larmore, Loïc Félix, Toby Spence, and Lucy Crowe.

Whilst especially known for the restoration and revival of the bel canto repertoire and particularly the works of Donizetti, Opera Rara has actively championed the works of Offenbach from the outset. One of its earliest recordings - Christopher Colombus (ORC2) – set a libretto by Opera Rara’s co- founder Don White to a compilation of the composer’s forgotten works. In 2015, its studio recording of Fantasio (ORC51) conducted by Sir Mark Elder and featuring Sarah Connolly and Brenda Rae won an International Opera Award. Most recently, Opera Rara recorded Offenbach’s 1869 comic operetta La Princesse de Trébizonde in the studio with Paul Daniel and the London Philharmonic Orchestra for release in autumn 2023.

Opera Rara presented its first concert - Arias and Ensembles of Forgotten Operas - at the Queen Elizabeth Hall more than 50 years ago, in July 1970. The concert featured music by Mercadante alongside Bellini, Donizetti, Mayr, Meyerbeer, Pacini and Rossini. In December 2021, Carlo Rizzi opened his tenure as Artistic Director with a performance of Leoncavallo’s Zingari which he followed six months later with Mercadante’s Il proscritto – an opera which Rizzi rediscovered in the Naples Conservatory Library during lockdown and which was brought back to life by Opera Rara. The opera’s debut recording will be released on 14 April with Ramón Vargas, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Irene Roberts and Elizabeth DeShong in the four principal roles. On 11 May, as part of a year-long celebration of Donizetti’s 225th birthday, Rizzi conducts a performance of L’esule di Roma at London’s Cadogan Hall featuring Albina Shagimuratova, star of Opera Rara’s recordings of Donizetti’s Il Paria (ORC60) and Rossini’s Semiramide (ORC57). L’esule di Roma marks Opera Rara’s 27th complete opera revival by Donizetti and the company’s 47th restoration project.

“Opera Rara’s own scintillating chorus also supplied the six pages guarding the waxworks [in La Princesse de Trébizonde] and in the finale their skills even extended to dancing a brief can-can. There was fizz and charm aplenty in the playing of the London Philharmonic and conductor Paul Daniel kept everything on a light leash without compromising fluidity and flexibility... The associated studio recording should be a must-have when released in a year’s time.” Bachtrack, 19 September 2022