Name: Ermonela Jaho & Carlo Rizzi: Donizetti and Friends
Start: 2024-05-23T13:00:00
Location: Wigmore Hall

Ermonela Jaho

Carlo Rizzi

Marco Rizzi

Opera Rara

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.

Puccini’s La rondine

Barbican Centre

Flora is joined by Puccini expert Alexandra Wilson, author of The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity and an edited collection, Puccini in Context, to explore the fascinating story behind Giacomo Puccini’s debut opera, Le Willis (“The Fairies”). The work received an enthusiastic reception in 1884, but even with Puccini’s musical lineage in Lucca, the journey to this early success in Milan—one of Europe’s operatic capitals—was anything but assured.

In this episode, Flora and Alexandra get to grips with the complex circumstances surrounding the creation and staging of Le Willis, exploring the factors that influenced Puccini during this formative period. Together, they consider how this first operatic venture not only introduced a distinctive new voice to Italian opera but also laid the foundation for a remarkable career.

Lives in Song: Puccini – EPISODE 2 – “Le Willis”

Join Opera Rara at Bechstein Hall for the second Salon Series recital of its 55th season on Thursday 26 February 2026. We welcome back pianist Anna Tilbrook, who will accompany Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong in an evening of rare songs, including some further examples from the charity’s large Donizetti Song Project. This concert will take place in the heart of London, at the new Bechstein Hall. 

Julieth Lozano Rolong was the Audience Prize Winner at the 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World and will make her Opera Rara debut as Bianca, Gabriella and Mariette in the final, 1921 version of Puccini’s La rondine at London’s Barbican Centre in December 2025. Opera Rara’s studio recording of Puccini’s opera will also mark Lozano’s opera recording debut.

Julieth Lozano Rolong and Anna Tilbrook Salon Concert

Bechstein Hall

Flora welcomes Maestro Carlo Rizzi—Artistic Director of Opera Rara and a leading Puccini interpreter today—into the Creative Kin studio for a wide-ranging and insightful conversation. With a distinguished international career spanning the world’s major opera houses, Rizzi brings a depth of understanding to Puccini’s richly orchestrated scores and emotional landscapes.

Together, they explore what makes Puccini’s music so enduringly powerful from the conductor’s perspective, discussing everything from phrasing and dramatic pacing to the delicate balance between voice and orchestra. Rizzi also shares the creative and musicological thinking behind his own arrangements of Puccini’s Symphonic Suites—works that offer a fresh approach to Puccini’s orchestral imagination.

Lives in Song: Puccini – EPISODE 3 – “Conducting Puccini with Carlo Rizzi”

Experience once again the magic of Opera Rara’s 55th Season with the broadcast of our second Salon Series recital, recorded live at the newly opened Bechstein Hall on 26 February 2026. Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong—Audience Prize Winner at the 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World—joins celebrated pianist Anna Tilbrook for a captivating evening of rarely heard songs, including selections from Opera Rara’s acclaimed Donizetti Song Project.

This recital marks Lozano Rolong’s recital debut with Opera Rara, just after of her highly anticipated appearance as Bianca, Gabriella and Mariette in Puccini’s La rondine at London’s Barbican Centre in December 2025, as well as in Opera Rara’s studio recording of Puccini’s final version of the opera.

Join us online to enjoy this unique programme of rediscovered gems and exquisite artistry, wherever you are.

Broadcast: Julieth Lozano Rolong and Anna Tilbrook Salon Concert

In a Lives in Song first, Flora welcomes to the studio internationally acclaimed soprano and Opera Rara’s Artist Ambassador Ermonela Jaho—renowned for her deeply emotive Puccini portrayals—for a conversation that bridges performance and interpretation. Together, they delve into the nuanced art of embodying Puccini’s heroines, the emotional and technical demands of his music, and Jaho’s enduring connection to a composer whose work continues to resonate on the world’s leading opera stages.

Described by The Telegraph as possessing “an emotional intensity that verges on the hypnotic,” Jaho is internationally renowned for the vulnerability and power that she brings to roles such as Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica. As The Guardian observed in 2017, “Jaho’s Cio-Cio-San is emotionally raw, vocally luminous, and devastating in its sincerity.” Who better to provide unique insights into the experience and challenges of breathing life into Puccini’s heroines in the 21st century?

Lives in Song: Puccini – EPISODE 4 – “Puccini’s Leading Ladies with Ermonela Jaho”

Opera Rara’s final Salon Series recital of its 55th season sees British tenor Robert Lewis join forces with British-Iranian soprano Soraya Mafi at London’s Bechstein Hall on 23 April 2026. They will be accompanied once again by the series’ featured collaborator and pianist Anna Tilbrook.

Winner of the 2025 Tenor Viñas Competition’s Domingo Prize, Robert Lewis will make his Opera Rara debut singing the role of Gobin in the final, 1921 version of Puccini’s La rondine at London’s Barbican Centre in December 2025. Opera Rara’s studio recording of Puccini’s opera will also mark Lewis’s recording debut.

Soraya Mafi, Robert Lewis and Anna Tilbrook Salon Concert

In the later years of his life, Giacomo Puccini produced fewer works, but those he did complete—the lyrical La rondine, the remarkable miniatures of Il trittico and the grand, unfinished Turandot—reveal a composer still constantly evolving. These operas, staples of the repertory today, showcase Puccini experimenting with new harmonic language, dramatic structures, and emotional depth—and are all deeply embedded in the shifting cultural landscape of the early 20th century.

In this episode, musicologist Flora Willson is joined again by music historian and editor of Opera Rara’s restoration of the final 1921 version of La rondine, Ditlev Rindom, to examine the composer’s mature style. Together, they unpack how Puccini’s later works challenge conventional narratives, balancing lush romanticism with modernist impulses—and even asking what it means to compose opera in a rapidly changing world.

Lives in Song: Puccini – EPISODE 5 – “Puccini’s Later Years”

Puccini’s later years were punctuated by illnesses – his chain smoking would eventually lead to throat cancer – and the deaths of Giulio Ricordi, his editor and publisher, and the librettist Giuseppe Giacosa. Despite his prowess as an operatic composer and a warm reception from critics and audiences alike, his 1917 opera, La rondine, proved to be one of his least popular works. Puccini subsequently revised it twice, in 1920 and 1921 – this final version being his last complete operatic work.

Flora and music historian Ditlev Rindom take us through the painstaking process of restoring the final 1921 version of La rondine, revealing the fascinating work that goes into creating a critical edition. They also explore the final years of Puccini’s life and reflect on the composer’s unique legacy today.

Lives in Song: Puccini – EPISODE 6 – “La rondine – the final 1921 version”

In demand across the world, Ermonela Jaho is best known for her portrayals of Verdi and Puccini’s heroines. She returns to her bel canto roots in a recital of rare songs by Gaetano Donizetti, alongside a selection by his contemporaries, with Opera Rara’s Artistic Director and pianist Carlo Rizzi. They will explore repertoire that has been recently restored and rarely, if ever, performed. The programme is complete with two works for violin and piano by Donizetti performed by brothers Marco and Carlo Rizzi.