Opera Lafayette is an American period instrument ensemble dedicated to performances of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century operas, particularly the French repertoire. Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Ryan Brown, Opera Lafayette has won critical acclaim and a loyal following for its concert and staged opera productions with well-known American and international artists. Its collaborations with The New York Baroque Dance Company, the leading baroque dance group in this country, have produced world première musical and dance performances.
Opera Lafayette records for Naxos. Its début recording of the 1774 Paris version of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice was released internationally in 2005, followed by Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone in 2006 and Rameau Opera Arias for Haute-Contre with tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt in 2007. With the 2007-2008 season’s performances and recording of Zélindor, Opera Lafayette launched a three-year project to present modern American premières of three eighteenth-century French operas in Washington, D.C. and in New York City at the Rose Theater, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and also to make première recordings of these operas.
Opera Lafayette was founded by Ryan Brown in 1995 as The Violins of Lafayette, producing a series of chamber concerts in the Salon Doré, an eighteenth century drawing room in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The ensemble quickly established a reputation for excellence, giving particular attention to opera in both semi-staged and concert performances. The newly-named Opera Lafayette was presented on the 2001-2002 inaugural season of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, and has gone on to offer works by Gluck, Handel, Rameau, Mozart, Charpentier and Lully.
