The Mozartists continue their MOZART 250 project of staging operas by Mozart and his contemporaries with their recording of the UK premiére of Niccolò Jommelli’s Il Vologeso, first performed over 250 years ago on 11 February 1766 for the Stuttgart court in Ludwigsburg. For this eagerly awaited performance The Mozartists assembled a superb young cast, headed by the Irish mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly, a graduate of the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme, tenor Stuart Jackson, a former Mozartists Associate Artist, and soprano Gemma Lois Summerfield, winner of the 2015 Kathleen Ferrier Award. Jommelli was born just north of Naples in 1714 (the same year as Gluck) and died there in 1774. Largely forgotten now, he was one of the most celebrated composers of his day, and during a career which spanned thirty-seven years he wrote some eighty operas as well as a great number of sacred works. He was seen as an important and progressive composer in combining the vocal melodiousness and lyricism of Italian opera with more elaborate and dramatically charged elements of French opera. Set in Ephesus, on the western extremes of the Parthian Empire, in c.164 AD, Il Vologeso centres on Berenice, a woman who becomes caught between two men – the victorious Roman general Lucio Vero, and Vologeso, King of the Parthians (thought dead, but recently returned after his defeat battle). The Mozartists, under the dynamic leadership of conductor and artistic director Ian Page, are leading exponents of the music of Mozart and his contemporaries. Originally called Classical Opera, the company was founded in 1997, and has received widespread international acclaim for its stylish and virtuosic period-instrument orchestra, its imaginative and innovative programming, and its ability to nurture and develop world-class young artists.

A composer inextricably linked with London’s Covent Garden, Thomas Arne’s greatest opera, Artaxerxes, was premièred at the Theatre Royal, the predecessor of the Royal Opera House, on 2 February 1762, and remained in the Covent Garden repertory until the late 1830s – where it received a documented 111 performances before 1790. The young Mozart almost certainly attended a performance when he came to London in the mid-1760s, and Haydn was also acquainted with the work, enthusiastically exclaiming that he “had no idea we had such an opera in the English language.” The Mozartists, under the dynamic leadership of conductor and artistic director Ian Page, are leading exponents of the music of Mozart and his contemporaries. Originally called Classical Opera, the company was founded in 1997, and has received widespread international acclaim for its stylish and virtuosic period-instrument orchestra, its imaginative and innovative programming, and its ability to nurture and develop world-class young artists. Renowned for their fresh and insightful interpretations of well-known masterpieces as well as for their ability to bring rare and neglected works to light, they have mounted staged productions of many of Mozart’s operas. In 2015 the company launched MOZART 250, a ground-breaking 27-year project exploring the chronological trajectory of Mozart’s life, works and influences. Described by The Observer as “among the most audacious classical music scheduling ever”, this flagship project presents 250th anniversary performances of most of Mozart’s important works, placing them in context alongside other significant works by Mozart’s contemporaries.

Continuing their complete Mozart opera recording cycle, Classical Opera’s latest release shines a light on two early opera works by Mozart. Grabmusik was reported to be the product of a test set by the prince of Salzburg, who: “... not crediting that such masterly compositions were really those of a child, shut him up for a week, during which he was not permitted to see any one, and was left only with music paper, and the words of an oratorio ... During this short time he composed a very capital oratorio, which was most highly approved of upon being performed.” Performed for Holy Week the title can be translated as ‘Cantata on Christ’s Grave’ (literally ‘Grave Music’), and the anonymous text takes the form of a dialogue between a tormented soul, who is desperately lamenting the tragedy of Christ’s death, and an angel. Bastien und Bastienne is the only one of Mozart’s operas to have been written for performance in a private house rather than a theatre. Commissioned at some point in mid-1768 by the renowned and controversial German physician Franz Anton Mesmer, it tells the tale of two young shepherds, Bastien and Bastienne, being reconciled in love the fortune teller and magician Collas after Bastien has briefly been lured away by the attractions of a noble lady from the city. This new recording is uses Mozart’s original 1767 setting of the libretto by F. W. Weiskern & J. H. F. Mu¨ller, the provenance of which was only established in 1980s.

Leading British soprano Sophie Bevan performs a sumptuous programme of concert arias by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Bevan is accompanied on this new recording by The Mozartists, recently launched by Ian Page's internationally renowned period ensemble Classical Opera as an expansion of its continuing exploration of Mozart and his contemporaries. Complementing Classical Opera's ongoing recording series of complete operas of Mozart, the creation of The Mozartists reflects the group's expanding repertoire and ambitious plans, and they can be heard in concert from September, 2017.

Classical Opera continue their series of the complete Mozart operas on Signum with Zaide - a new completion of Mozart's unfinished work by conductor Ian Page. Composed during his early 20's, Mozart began work on the opera in Salzburg but later left the work to compose Idomeneo, subsequently leaving no overture or third act. The opera is set in a totalitarian regime where a couple have fallen in love, incurring the jealous of the ruling sultan.

Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto was first performed in Milan in 1770—the composer was still a month short of his fifteenth birthday and the opera ran for an impressive 22 performances. As well as the complete opera, this release includes original versions of a number of arias that Mozart subsequently changed.