Opera Rara at 50: insight talk on-line tonight

Opera Rara is 50 this year, and earlier this week there should have been a celebratory performance of Donizetti's Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo at the Barbican with Carlo Rizzi conducting the Britten Sinfonia. This hss been postponed until next year, and the event will now take place on 8 July 2021, when Carlo Rizzi conducts a cast including Misha Kiria, Albina Shagimuratova, Fabio Capitanucci, André Henriques, Heather Lowe and René Barbera [see Barbican website]. The opera is loosely based one of the stories from Cervantes Don Quixote and Donizetti wrote it in 1833 (the year after L'elisir d'amore and only a few years after Anna Bolena, Donizetti's breakthrough piece). Il furioso is not an entire stranger to the UK stage as English Touring Opera staged the work in 2015 [see Hilary's review], though the Opera Rara performance will undoubtedly benefit from a critical edition of the work.

If you feel deprived of the ability to celebrate Opera Rara's anniversary (and there is much to celebrate), then fear not. Tune in to Opera Rara's Facebook page at 7pm tonight (25 June 2020) to hear Artistic Dramaturge, Roger Parker and Musicologist, Ditlev Rindom in conversation, and they will be joined by Artistic Director, Carlo Rizzi and Chief Executive, Henry Little for a live Q and A.