Opera Rara is a label long devoted to the exposure of rare and obscure operas, mostly from the Baroque through Romantic periods. Try this one on for size -- Ferdinando Paër's Sofonisba, an opera of 1805 vintage written during Paër's employ as Kapellmeister to the Saxon court of Elector Frederick Augustus II, soon to fall to Napoleon's intrigues. Sofonisba was used to open the Teatro del Corso in Bologna, and presumably has not been heard again until this recording was made in 2005.Sofonisba is the tale of the third century ...
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Opera Rara is a label long devoted to the exposure of rare and obscure operas, mostly from the Baroque through Romantic periods. Try this one on for size -- Ferdinando Paër's Sofonisba, an opera of 1805 vintage written during Paër's employ as Kapellmeister to the Saxon court of Elector Frederick Augustus II, soon to fall to Napoleon's intrigues. Sofonisba was used to open the Teatro del Corso in Bologna, and presumably has not been heard again until this recording was made in 2005.Sofonisba is the tale of the third century B.C. Carthaginian princess who, captured during the Second Punic War, decided to opt for poison rather than to be paraded through the streets of Rome. Keeping to form, that's not exactly what happens at the end of Paër's opera, set to a libretto written by a lawyer named Domenico Rosetti, who in turn knocked it off from a 70-year-old Zanetti text already set by several composers. The title role is performed by Jennifer Larmore, who is in fine form here, along with Paul Nilon who...
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