Complete Operas

Donizetti’s fascination with the story of Gabriella di Vergy began in 1826. The grisly appeal of the story of Gabriella lies in its powerful final scene in which Gabriella’s husband, Fayel, delivers to her a casket containing the still-warm heart of her lover, Raoul.

Maria is the mistress of Pedro the Cruel of Castile. Her father, Ruiz, discovers the identity of her lover and, burdened by shame, loses his reason

Corneille’s tragedy Les Horaces concerns a long and bitter feud between two noble Roman families. This violent story is brought vividly to life by Mercadante’s 1846 opera

Based on Victor Hugo’s passionate play about Mary Tudor, Maria regina d’Inghilterra was one of Pacini’s most successful operas.

Opera Rara recorded the new critical edition by the Rossini Foundation of Otello. Hugely admired in its day, this highly innovative score contains some of Rossini’s most inspired music.

A one-act opera buffa written for Naples. Donizetti's La romanzesca e l'uomo nero dates from the same period as Anna Bolena and L’elisir d’amore when the composer’s genius was in full flood.

This opera, which is one of Rossini’s most sumptuous and ornate, tells of Bianca’s love (Majella Cullagh) for Falliero (Jennifer Larmore) and her struggle to resist her father’s attempts to marry her to Capellio (Ildebrando D’Arcangelo).

Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra (1815) was the first of the nine Rossini Neapolitan operas written for Teatro San Carlo. The works Rossini composed were hailed (and have been ever since) as some of the most remarkable ever to be composed for the lyric stage.

Ermione is without doubt one of the greatest operas by Rossini, despite it being perhaps the least immediately successful: Ermione was received with incomprehension at its sole performance in 1819 and was never revived in Rossini’s lifetime.

Margherita d’Anjou is the fourth of Meyerbeer’s six Italian operas. Although he is often accused of imitating Rossini, this engaging opera shows how Meyerbeer uses the musical conventions of the time to forge his own musical style.

Zelmira was the last opera Rossini wrote for the Teatro San Carlo and it succeeds in maintaining a constant, consistent level of musical excellence.

Emma d’Anitochia is one of a number of important operas, which Mercadante wrote in the years 1831-1837 – a period that began on his return from several years spent in Spain and Portugal.

Il diluvio universale tells the biblical story of Noah (Noè in Italian). But it is given still further human and dramatic interest, since it also presents the story – and the tragedy – of Sela, the favourite concubine and wife of Cadmo, satrap of the Babylonian city of Sennáár.

Maybe you’ve come across this plot before: a damsel-in-distress is saved by a knight in shining armour. This is the standard ‘fairy tale’ we all learned as children. Yet the surprising thing about Adelaide di Borgogna is that the story is true.

Rossini’s La donna del lago (Naples, 1819) was not only the first Italian opera to be based on a work by Sir Walter Scott, the narrative poem The Lady of the Lake: it was also a milestone in the development of romanticism in Italian opera.

Alessandro nell’Indie tells the story of Alexander the Great’s campaign in India, of his defeat of the Indian king Porus (Poro), and of his infatuation with an Indian queen, Cleophes (Cleofide). It is a vehicle for gorgeously over-the-top bravura singing as the characters confront each other, deceive each other, reproach each other, plead with each other.

Imelda de’ Lambertazzi immediately precedes Donizetti’s first masterpiece, Anna Bolena, and was written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in the same year (1830).

In recent years, there has been increased interest in the works of Ambroise Thomas, particularly in his ambitious setting of Hamlet (1868). Opera Rara now takes a further important step in the rediscovery of this fascinating figure, with a new recording of his 1855 opéra-comique La Cour de Célimène.

Like Mercadante's stirring Orazi e Curiazi (written in 1846 and also recorded by Opera Rara), Virginia is set in ancient Rome and is half-history, half-legend.

Donizetti’s gripping opera, Parisina, comes from a particularly fruitful period in the composer’s life. The opera made its 1833 debut in Florence, the year Lucrezia Borgia opened at La Scala and Torquato Tasso premiered in Rome, with a libretto by leading exponent of his craft at that time, Felice Romani.

Opera Rara presents a complete recording of the delectable comic opera in 3 acts, Vert-Vert, which was the follow-up to Robinson Crusoe at the Opéra Comique and one of five stage works Offenbach produced in 1869 alone.

According to the late Donizetti expert William Ashbrook, Maria di Rohan (1843) is the composer‘s ‘tautest, most melodramatic opera’ and shows him ‘in complete control of his musico-dramatic goals’.

Vincenzo Bellini’s third opera, Il pirata, marked an important step in his career. Not only was it the 27 year old’s first score for the brand leader of Italian opera houses, La Scala, Milan, it also represented his first collaboration with Felice Romani, the leading librettist of the day, who was to become his regular artistic partner.

This new release features a double bill of Massenet’s Le Portrait de Manon and Berlioz’s song cycle Les Nuits d’été, recorded from live staged performances at the Royal Opera House with artists from the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme and the Southbank Sinfonia.

JUNE 2013, now released. Caterina Cornaro was written in the extremely productive last period of Donizetti's life (between Don Pasquale and Linda di Chamounix) and was in fact the very last of his operas to be premiered in his lifetime.

Opera Rara celebrates 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 is the first studio recording of the newly restored critical edition of the score. 

A tragic tale of Christian martyrdom, Les Martyrs began its life as Poliuto, Donizetti's Italian opera which - due to its religious content - was banned before its Naples premiere. Greatly angered by the Italian censors' decision, Donizetti moved to Paris in the hope of conquering the Opéra de Paris and securing his status as a composer of international repute.