Nicola Alaimo

Ermonela Jaho

Carlo Rizzi

Iván Ayón-Rivas

William Thomas

David Shipley

Joanna Harries

Julieth Lozano Rolong

Jessica Robinson

Ellie Neate

Robert Lewis

Juan Franciso Gatell

Opera Rara

BBC Singers

BBC Symphony Orchestra

What happens when man’s best friend becomes head-of-state? Opera Rara and the Hallé team up once again to present Offenbach’s opera Barkouf, where a dog rules the day.

Offenbach’s Barkouf

The Bridgewater Hall

Ermonela Jaho stars in Puccini’s bittersweet romance, his opera La rondine, incorporating music that has not been heard this century. 

Ruggero is young and wealthy, with his whole life before him. Magda is beautiful, worldly and wise – surely too wise to fall in love all over again? But amid the delights of belle-époque Paris, romance can be as intoxicating as champagne – and the heart, as they say, has its own reasons. In Puccini’s opera La rondine, they’ve never sounded sweeter.

Inspired by Viennese operetta, La rondine is a bittersweet love story, set to some of the most romantic melodies that even Puccini ever wrote. But it’s also portrait of a world waltzing on the edge; a deeply moving study of innocence and (tender) experience. This one-off concert performance from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Opera Rara stars Ermonela Jaho as Magda, and uses the newly restored final 1921 version of the score, incorporating music which is completely unknown today. Prepare to be seduced.

EPSG:4326

Puccini’s La rondine

Barbican Centre

La rondine