Mark Elder & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Donizetti: L'Ange de Nisida

Opera Rara

£18

Format: 2CD
ICPN: 0792938035826
Release Date: 19th March 2021
Genre: Classical

2CD digipack, 32pp booklet – Note & Synopsis in English

Opera in four acts

Joyce El-Khoury, David Junghoon Kim,
Laurent Naouri, Vito Priante, Evgeny Stavinsky

Royal Opera Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Mark Elder, conductor
World Premiere

Opera Rara presents, nearly 180 years after it was written, the world premiere recording of a Donizetti ‘lost’ masterpiece. Written in 1839 for the Theâtre de la Renaissance in Paris, rehearsals started but the theatre went bankrupt and the opera was never performed – until 2018. Taken from two acclaimed concert performances at the Royal Opera House, L’Ange de Nisida is a fascinating and passionate drama, full of exciting vocal writing, composed by Donizetti near to the end of his life.

Countess Sylvia de Linarès, mistress to the King of Naples ........................... Joyce El-Khoury
Leone de Casaldi, an exiled soldier ................................................................ David Junghoon Kim
Don Fernand d’Aragon, King of Naples .......................................................... Vito Priante
Don Gaspar, chamberlain to the King of Naples ............................................. Laurent Naouri
The Monk / Father Superior …......................................................................... Evgeny Stavinsky

Royal Opera Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Mark Elder, conductor
Recorded live at Royal Opera House, London, on 18 and 21 July 2018

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

Winner, Best Opera Recording, 2019 Oper! Awards
Winner, Best Opera and Vocal Music of 2019, The Boston Musical Intelligencer
Nomination, Rediscovered Work, 2019 International Opera Awards
Recording of the Month, Opera magazine
Opera Choice, BBC Music Magazine
Disc of the Week, BBC Radio 3 Record Review
Recordings of the Year 2019 – Our Top 100, Presto Classical

IN THE PRESS…

“We finally got a recording – a splendid one – of Donizetti’s L’ange de Nisida, a work that never got performed during the composer’s lifetime... The performance under Mark Elder, is magnificent, not least the singing of Joyce El-Khoury and David Junghoon Kim as the two lovers.” The Boston Musical Intelligencer

“This recording expertly blends two live unstaged performances at the Royal Opera House in London in July 2018. [...] Elder shows how adept and alert he can be with a score that must have been largely unfamiliar to most of the players and singers. In short, a major Donizetti work is here reclaimed for music lovers. This Angel is winging her way onto my ‘Best of 2019’ list.”
The Arts Fuse

“Opera Rara once again releases one of the most successful and interesting recordings this year.” Club de Opéra

“What a pleasure to have yet another opera by Donizetti to add to the canon.” Fanfare

“It deserves not just praise but trumpet volleys and showers of gold leaf: it’s surely the most remarkable Opera Rara feat of Donizettian endeavour yet [...] A Mark Elder- conducted performance of, once again, outstanding commitment, care over detail and stylistically concerned musicianship, with immaculate contributions from the Covent Garden orchestra and chorus.”
Opera, August 2019

“On listening to this recording, this is clearly an unmissable score not only for scholars and artists. The music is mature and generous with execution to match in the choice of singers and conductor.” La Repubblica

“This new Donizetti work is absolutely an asset to the current repertory.” TROUW

“Under the perfect direction of Sir Mark Elder’s experienced baton, both the dramatic power and dancing lightness of this score is brought to the fore [...] Thanks to the strength of the cast and orchestral playing, this Angel of Nisida is given a grand welcome to the Donizettian catalogue.”
Avant Scene Opera

“This is a near ideal recording, and will let people explore this curious and intriguing piece that sheds new light on Donizetti’s final decade.” Planet Hugill

“One of the best things about this new recording is the sharp conducting of Sir Mark Elder which marries fluidity with a sense of instrumental detail, passion and lightness.” Opéra Magazine

“One must congratulate Opera Rara and Sir Mark Elder who exhumed and recorded L’ange de Nisida after 190 years of oblivion. The label under Elder has not only done wonders to Donizetti’s legacy but has also made important rediscoveries of French works from the same period.”
Il Venerdì

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ABOUT L’ANGE DE NISIDA
In July 2018, Opera Rara – in their fourth collaboration with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – presented the world première of Donizetti’s L’Ange de Nisida. It was due to be among Donizetti’s first operas to be premièred in Paris after the composer’s move to the French capital in 1838 but the project had to be abandoned, though, when the commissioning theatre, the Théâtre de la Renaissance, went bankrupt. Although Donizetti would later use portions of its score in La Favorite and in Don Pasquale, L’Ange de Nisida was long deemed too fragmentary to be capable of reconstruction. However, opinions were changed in 2009 thanks to extensive research in the Paris archives by the Italian scholar Candida Mantica and, over the last 10 years, the 800-page score has been restored. As Roger Parker, Repertoire Consultant to Opera Rara, explains, “L’Ange de Nisida will make people think about Donizetti’s late style in a different way. It will rewrite how we think about him as a composer, in particular about the breadth of his musical inspiration.”