Jeremy Commons

After graduating MA in English from Auckland University and Merton College, Oxford,[1] he spent a year in Italy as an Italian Government scholarship-holder studying early nineteenth century opera.

He has spent many years in Italian libraries and archives, uncovering not only neglected opera composers and their scores, but also collections of their letters and papers, contemporary accounts and reviews, thus building up an invaluable picture of their lives and productions.

His first major scholarly work was the 1,652 page volume The First Performances of the Operas of Donizetti, produced in collaboration with Annalisa Bini and published in Italian in 1997.

On his own he subsequently published in 2008 a collection of more than 2000 letters he has transcribed and edited that were written by or to the composer Nicola Vaccaj, a contemporary of Rossini and Donizetti, whose singing exercises are used by singers to this day.

As a producer, Commons has focused on small-scale salon operas, suitable for performance by small groups operating on limited budgets.

With Dorothy Quita Buchanan he wrote The Mansfield Stories (The Woman at the Store, Miss Brill and The Daughters of the Late Colonel).

With John Drummond he has produced six operas: Mr Polly at the Potwell Inn (2000), A Beleaguered City (2002), Marriage à la Mode (2004), Impersonating Maurice (2005), Mrs Windermere (2006) and The Genteel Pigeons (2006).