The aim of Britain's Classical Opera Orchestra has been to create historically accurate performances and recordings of Mozart's operas and those of his contemporaries. After joining with the instrumental group the Mozartists under one umbrella, their expertise has been applied to Mozart's instrumental music as well. Where many early music groups cultivate a strong style of their own, the Classical Opera Orchestra has focused on collaboration, expanding and contracting according to the requirements of particular projects, and nurturing the careers of many young singers. The Classical Opera Orchestra, also known simply as Classical Opera, was founded in 1997 by Ian Page, who remains the group's conductor. From the beginning, the group has used historically appropriate instruments and has striven to create a sound appropriate to what Mozart and his contemporaries might have heard. The group has performed at the Barbican, Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, and Southbank Centre in London, and has appeared at Birmingham Town Hall and toured to France, Italy, Germany, and Austria. It has been involved with innovative productions of many Mozart operas in Britain, including a performance of a hitherto unmounted original version of Mitridate, re di Ponto. Classical Opera has also performed in the U.K. premieres of operas by Gluck (La clemenza di Tito), Jommelli (Il Vologeso), Telemann (Orpheus), and Arne (Artaxerxes, with the Royal Opera), as well as the first production in two-and-a-half centuries of Johann Christian Bach's Adriano in Siria. In 2012, the group launched a complete cycle of recordings on the Signum label of Mozart operas and, after joining with the Mozartists, a still more ambitious project followed: Mozart 250, a 27-year survey in performance of Mozart's life, including not only his own music but those of composers he would have heard and who influenced him. In addition to individual Mozart operas, the Signum series has included the survey disc The A-Z of Mozart operas.
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