Donizetti's L’esule di Roma: a Roman triumph for Opera Rara

A new edition of Puccini's score springs to life in a meticulously prepared Opera Rara concert performance at the Barbican. 

A youthful Bellini opera able to stand on its own two feet? Perhaps not, as Adelson e Salvini gets the Opera Rara treatment. 

Offenbach’s wrongfully neglected masterpiece has returned to us at last, thanks to the concerted efforts of Opera Rara, the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and Sir Mark Elder; and, above all, because of the tireless, lifelong devotion of one man: Jean-Christophe Keck.

The second collaboration between Opera Rara and the BBC Symphony Orchestra brought a starry cast to the Barbican Centre on Sunday evening for a revival of Donizetti’s tragic opera Belisario. Written in 1836, immediately after the triumph of Lucia di Lammermoor, it was an instant success following its première at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and remained in the repertoire for several decades.

Tom Creed’s witty production at Lismore Castle delivers strong singing, sharp comedy and lively orchestral playing, even if the opera’s darker supernatural edges are somewhat diminished.