Obvious affection: Lawrence Brownlee and Carlo Rizzi | Picture: Russell Duncan

A surprising number of people drooped their way to Wigmore Hall on the hottest day of the year, lured by the concert ‘Donizetti & Friends’, heralding the launch of Opera Rara’s project to perform and record every one of the composer’s songs. A short lunchtime recital, it starred tenor Lawrence Brownlee and accompanist Carlo Rizzi, both looking bandbox fresh in suave lounge suits and surveying a sea of crumpled linen.

The project is curated by Roger Parker, the company’s Repertoire Consultant, who has assiduously ferreted out some rarities. Brownlee started with a group of early pieces, ‘Lunge ne vai’ displaying some neat turns, adroitly incorporate into the line, and a smooth mezza voce in ‘Malvina’. One standout was the recitative and aria structure of ‘O anime afannnate’, sounding as though it was purloined from an opera. That idea cropped up again in a later group of songs, with one that sounded as though the main melody was partly lifted from the mezzo’s opening cavatina in Rossini’s Semiramide.

The final group, from Donizetti in full bloom (the late 1830s and 1840s) also featured an almost lost song, perhaps never performed before. And Brownlee finished with another rarity, first discovered and published in Corriere della Sera in the 1950s, which has the surprise of morphing into Edgardo’s ‘Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali’, the final pages of Lucia di Lammermoor. Against these were songs by Rossini, Bellini and Verdi to demonstrate links and ideas shared by each composer’s artistic development and, more surprisingly, a group by Schubert in Italian, and more pianistic in texture.

Brownlee admitted to a cold and thanked us for our indulgence, but from the audience reaction the pleasure was ours. His tenor, the odd cloudy note apart, was fresh and buoyant, the lines supple, the turns and triplets fleet. Rizzi took a back seat to his singer throughout, though they have an obvious affection and often joshed each other, not least when a straight-faced Rizzi started Verdi’s song ‘Brindisi’ with the tune of that from La Traviata, which amused not just the audience but the singer. It was an excellent recital, well-judged and paced, and sent everyone back out into the Sahara of Wigmore Street with a smile on their face.

opera-rara.com