Opera Rara's Donizetti & Friends recital with Ermonela Jaho and Carlo Rizzi took place at Wigmore Hall with support from Elena Baturina

LONDON, May 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On Thursday 23 May a live performance of Opera Rara's Donizetti Song Project happened at London's Wigmore Hall. Artist Ambassador Ermonela Jaho and Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi performed rare Donizetti songs, as well assongs by Bellini, Verdi, Gounod and Viardot.

This recital continued the multi-year Donizetti Song Project, which will see the recording and performance of the composer's nearly 200 solo songs, discovered in a recent research by Roger Parker, Opera Rara's Repertoire Consultant and an internationally known expert on Donizetti; a great many of them completely unknown.

In the Donizetti Song Project, Opera Rara plans to create a new edition of the songs and then record them in eight individual albums. This ambitious programme will include live performances by the internationally renowned artists featured on each album, as well as a "salon" series for emerging artists. The Donizetti Song Project, one of the most ambitious in Opera Rara's 50-year history, aims to add a substantial body of work to the solo song repertoire through recordings and performances, making a claim that Donizetti is one of the genre's most significant composers in the nineteenth century.

This Opera Rara recital was generously supported by Elena Baturina who became a supporter of Opera Rara's Donizetti Song Project last year. For Elena Baturina, this project is a way to commemorate her beloved late husband, Mr Yury Luzhkov; one of the songs during the recital was specifically dedicated to his memory.

With support from Elena Baturina, Opera Rara has produced a double-disc Donizetti Songs recording and arranged their performing by Ermonela Jaho.  The discs will be available worldwide in 2025.

Elena Baturina is an international philanthropist and business person  whose international career has spanned a spectrum of industries, from manufacturing to hospitality. Elena is a self-made woman who has built her formidable business empire from scratch. For many years Elena Baturina has been involved in charities that prioritise people and their ideas.

Opera Rara is an opera company, recording label and a live operatic archaeologist that searches for neglected operatic masterpieces and restores them for contemporary audiences to enjoy. The company's projects have been recognised through major international opera awards.

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