Conductor and Opera Rara Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi was victorious at the 2023 International Opera Awards. Rizzi and Opera Rara won Opera Recording of the Year for Mercadante: Il proscritto.
Set in Edinburgh against the backdrop of Oliver Cromwell’s rule, Il proscritto saw a marked return to melody by Mercadante who retained the orchestral richness of his “reform” operas but restored aspects of bel canto lyricism.
Rizzi conducts Ramón Vargas, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Irene Roberts, Elizabeth DeShong, Sally Matthews, Goderdzi Janelidze, Susana Gaspar and Britten Sinfonia on this acclaimed recording.
Carlo Rizzi holds a long-standing reputation as one of the world’s foremost operatic conductors, in demand as a guest artist at the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals. Equally at home in the opera house and the concert hall, his vast repertoire spans everything from the foundation works of the operatic and symphonic canon to rarities by Bellini, Cimarosa and Donizetti to Giordano, Pizzetti and Montemezzi. Combining a deep expertise in the vocal art with theatrical flair and the practical collaborative skills honed over decades of experience in the world’s finest theatres, he is acclaimed by singers and audiences alike as a master of the operatic craft.
The 2023/24 season will see the release of Donizetti’s L’Esule di Roma for Opera Rara, and the first of a projected complete edition of Donizetti’s songs, with Rizzi at the piano, accompanying a starry array of singers including Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Spyres and Ermonela Jaho. He conducts revivals of La Boheme and Un Ballo in Maschera at the Metropolitan Opera, I Vespri Siciliani at the Wiener Staatsoper, Otello at the Seoul Arts Centre, and a new production of Il Trittico for Welsh National Opera.
