Opera Rara is a London-based opera company and recording label which specialises in recording and performing forgotten operatic repertoire from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1970 by bel canto enthusiasts Patric Schmid and Don White, Opera Rara's recordings are internationally distributed by Warner Classics. In September 2019, Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi succeeded Sir Mark Elder as Artistic Director. History Opera Rara launched in the 1970s with a series of concerts of 19th-century operatic arias performed at the Southbank Centre, St John’s Smith Square and Wigmore Hall in London. The company presented its first complete opera - Meyerbeer’s Il crociato in Egitto - in 1972 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, marking the first performance of the opera for more than 100 years. It subsequently performed at the Bath Festival, Camden Festival (where its first staged production was Donizetti’s Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali) and Sadler’s Wells. A rise in pirated recordings broadcast by BBC Radio 3 of Opera Rara performances led to a decision to issue its own recordings. In 1978, it released its first: the world premiere studio recording of Donizetti’s Ugo, conte di Parigi starring Janet Price, Yvonne Kenny, Della Jones and Christian du Plessis. The opera itself had been reconstructed by Patric Schmid from the composer’s autograph manuscript. In July 2018 Opera Rara gave the world premiere of Donizetti's L’Ange de Nisida in collaboration with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. A live recording taken from those performances was released in March 2019. The score had been reconstructed over a period of eight years by Italian musicologist Candida Mantica. The first complete staging of L’Ange de Nisida was subsequently given at the 2019 Donizetti Festival in Bergamo. The company has also performed and recorded works by other 19th-century composers, including Bellini, Massenet, Mayr, Mercadante, Meyerbeer, Pacini, Rossini and Ambroise Thomas. Under Artistic Director Sir Mark Elder (2011-2019), the company began to explore works by French composers of the same period including Gounod and Offenbach, as well as verismo operas from the turn of the 20th century. In November 2022, Michael Spyres and Ermonela Jaho were announced as Opera Rara's new Artist Ambassadors. Performances In recent years, Opera Rara has given annual concert performances of operas either at London’s Barbican Centre or The Royal Festival Hall, usually preceded by a week–long recording in the studio. The company has collaborated the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the