This list provides a guide to the most prominent operas, as determined by their presence on a majority of selected compiled lists, which date from between 1984 and 2000. The operas included cover all important genres, and include all operas regularly performed today, from seventeenth-century works to late twentieth-century operas. The brief accompanying notes offer an explanation as to why each opera has been considered important. The organisation of the list is by year of first performance, or, if this was long after the composer's death, approximate date of composition.
1640 Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Monteverdi). Monteverdi's first opera for Venice, based on Homer's Odyssey, displays the composer's mastery of portrayal of genuine individuals as opposed to stereotypes.[3]
1642 L'incoronazione di Poppea (Monteverdi). Monteverdi's last opera, composed for a Venetian audience, is often performed today. Its Venetian context helps to explain the complete absence of the moralizing tone often associated with opera of this time.[4]
1644 Ormindo (Francesco Cavalli). One of the first of Cavalli's operas to be revived in the 20th century, Ormindo is considered one of his more attractive works.[5]
1649 Giasone (Cavalli). In Giasone Cavalli, for the first time, separated aria and recitative.[6]Giasone was the most popular opera of the 17th century.[7]
1651 La Calisto (Cavalli). Ninth of the eleven operas that Cavalli wrote with Faustini is noted for its satire of the deities of classical mythology.[8]
1683 Dido and Aeneas (Henry Purcell). Often considered to be the first genuine English-language operatic masterwork. Not first performed in 1689 at a girls' school, as is commonly believed, but at Charles II's court in 1683.[9]
1692 The Fairy-Queen (Purcell). A semi-opera rather than a genuine opera, this is often thought to be Purcell's finest dramatic work.[10]
1710 Agrippina (Handel). Handel's last opera that he composed in Italy was a great success,[11] and established his reputation as a composer of Italian opera.[12]
1711 Rinaldo (Handel). Handel's first opera for the London stage was also the first all-Italian opera performed on the London stage.[13]
1724 Giulio Cesare (Handel). Noted for the richness of its orchestration.[14]
1735 Ariodante (Handel). Both this opera and Alcina enjoy high critical reputations today.[23]
1735 Alcina (Handel). Both this work and Ariodante were part of Handel's first opera season at Covent Garden.[24]
1735 Les Indes galantes (Rameau). In this work Rameau added emotional depth and power to the traditionally lighter form of opéra-ballet.[25]
1737 Castor et Pollux (Rameau). Initially only a moderate success, when it was revived in 1754 Castor et Pollux was regarded as Rameau's finest achievement.[26]
1738 Serse (Handel). Deviation from the usual model of opera seria, Serse contains many comic elements rare in Handel's other works.[27]
1740 Alfred (Thomas Arne). An English opera of all times, famous for the patriotic song "Rule Britannia".
1744 Semele (Handel). Originally performed as an oratorio, Semele's dramatic qualities have often led to the work being performed on the opera stage in modern times.[28]
1745 Platée (Rameau). Rameau's most famous comic opera. Originally a court entertainment, a 1754 revival proved extremely popular with French audiences.[25]
1760 La buona figliuola (Niccolò Piccinni). Piccinni's work was initially immensely popular throughout Europe. By 1790 over 70 productions of the opera had been produced and it had been performed in all the major European cities.[29]
1781 Idomeneo (Mozart). Usually thought of as Mozart's first mature opera, Idomeneo was composed after a lengthy break from the stage.[37]
1782 Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Mozart). Often thought of as the first of Mozart's comic masterpieces, this work is frequently performed today.[38]
1786 Der Schauspieldirektor (Mozart). Another Singspiel with much spoken dialogue taken from plays of that time, the plot of Der Schauspieldirektor features two sopranos vying to become prima donna in a newly assembled company. Premiered together with Antonio Salieri's Prima la musica e poi le parole[32]
1786 Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart). The first of the famous series of Mozart operas set to libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte is now Mozart's most popular opera.[32]
1787 Don Giovanni (Mozart). Second of the operas that Mozart set to Da Ponte's libretti, Don Giovanni has provided a puzzle for writers and philosophers ever since its composition.[32]
1790 Così fan tutte (Mozart). Third and last of the operas that Mozart set to libretti by Da Ponte, Così fan tutte was scarcely performed throughout the 19th century, as the plot was considered to be immoral.[40]
1791 La clemenza di Tito (Mozart). Mozart's last opera before his early death was extremely popular until 1830, after which the work's popularity and critical reputation began to decline; they did not return to their former levels until after the Second World War.[32]
1791 Die Zauberflöte (Mozart). Has been described as "the apotheosis of the Singspiel", Die Zauberflöte was denigrated during the 19th century as confused and lacking in definition.[38]
1792 Il matrimonio segreto (Domenico Cimarosa). Usually regarded as Cimarosa's best opera,[41]Leopold II enjoyed the three-hour-long premiere so much that, after dinner, he compelled the singers to repeat the opera later during that same day.[42]
1813 L'italiana in Algeri (Rossini). This opera is described by Richard Osborne, writing in Grove Music Online, as "Rossini's first buffo masterpiece in the fully fledged two-act form".[46]
1813 Tancredi (Rossini). This melodramma eroico was described by poet Giuseppe Carpani thus: "It is cantilena and always cantilena: beautiful cantilena, new cantilena, magic cantilena, rare cantilena".[46]
1814 Il turco in Italia (Rossini). This opera stands out among Rossini's output for its frequent ensembles and absence of aria.[46]
1816 Otello (Rossini). The composer Giacomo Meyerbeer described the third act of Otello thus: "The third act of Otello established its reputation so firmly that a thousand errors could not shake it".[46]
1817 La Cenerentola (Rossini). Rossini's comedy was composed in just over three weeks.[47]
1828 Le comte Ory (Rossini). Rossini's opera has enjoyed a high critical reputation throughout the years: 19th-century critic Henry Chorley said that "there is not a bad melody, there is not an ugly bar in Le comte Ory", and Richard Osborne, writing in Grove Music Online, calls details that the work is one of the "wittiest, most stylish and most urbane of all comic operas".[46]
1829 La straniera (Bellini). La straniera is rare among bel canto operas in that it offers remarkably few opportunities for vocal ostentation.[53]
1829 Guillaume Tell (Rossini). Rossini's last opera before his retirement is a tale of liberty set in the Swiss Alps. It helped to establish the genre of French Grand Opera.[55]
1830 Anna Bolena (Gaetano Donizetti). This was Donizetti's first success on the international scene and helped greatly to establish his reputation.[56]
1831 Norma (Bellini). Bellini's best-known opera, paradigm of Romantic operas. The final act of this work is often noted for the originality of its orchestration.[60]
1834 Maria Stuarda (Donizetti). This work was dismissed as a failure in the 19th century, but since its revival in 1958 it has made frequent appearances on stage.[65]
1835 La Juive (Fromental Halévy). This grand opera rivalled the works of Meyerbeer in popularity. The tenor aria "Rachel quand du seigneur" is particularly famous.[68]
1835 Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti). Donizetti's most famous tragic opera, notable for Lucia's mad scene.[69]
1836 A Life for the Tsar (Mikhail Glinka). Glinka established the tradition of Russian opera with this historical work and the later Ruslan and Lyudmila.[70]
1836 Les Huguenots (Giacomo Meyerbeer). Perhaps the most famous of all French grand operas, widely regarded as Meyerbeer's masterpiece.[71]
1837 Roberto Devereux (Donizetti). Donizetti wrote this work as a distraction from the grief he felt at the death of his wife.[72]
1840 Bátori Mária(Erkel). Erkel's first opera was also the first true opera written in Hungarian and is based on the story of Ines de Castro in Camões'Os Lusiadas, the Portuguese national epic.[76]
1840 Un giorno di regno (Verdi). Verdi's only comedy apart from his last opera, Falstaff.[74]
1842 Der Wildschütz (Albert Lortzing). Lortzing's "comic masterpiece", intended to show a German work could rival Italian opera buffa and French opéra comique.[77]
1842 Nabucco (Verdi). Verdi described this opera as the genuine beginning of his artistic career.[78]
1844 Hunyadi László (Erkel). Erkel's second opera is generally considered his best, but is second in popularity to his later opera Bánk Bán which is considered the Hungarian "National Opera".[76]
1844 Ernani (Verdi). One of the most dramatically effective of Verdi's early works.[85]
1846 Attila (Verdi). Verdi was troubled by ill health during the writing of this piece, which was only a moderate success at the premiere.[87]
1846 La damnation de Faust (Berlioz). Frustrated at his lack of opera commissions, Berlioz composed this "dramatic legend" for concert performance. In recent years, it has been successfully staged as an opera, though the critic David Cairns describes it as "cinematic".[88]
1847 Macbeth (Verdi). Verdi's first venture into Shakespeare.[87]
1847 Martha (Friedrich von Flotow). Flotow unashamedly aimed at satisfying popular taste in this comic and sentimental work set in the England of Queen Anne.[89]
1858 Les Troyens (Hector Berlioz). Berlioz's greatest opera and the culmination of the French Classical tradition.[88]
1859 Faust (Charles Gounod). Of all the musical settings of the Faust legend, Gounod's has been the most popular with audiences, especially in the Victorian era.[102]
1859 Un ballo in maschera (Verdi). This opera ran into trouble with the censors because it originally dealt with the assassination of a monarch.[103]
1861 Bánk bán (Erkel). Erkel's third opera is considered the Hungarian "National opera".[104]
1862 Béatrice et Bénédict (Berlioz). The last opera Berlioz wrote is the final fruit of his lifelong admiration for Shakespeare.[105]
1862 La forza del destino (Verdi). This tragedy was commissioned by the Imperial Theatre, Saint Petersburg, and Verdi may have been influenced by the Russian tradition in the writing of his work.[106]
1863 Les pêcheurs de perles (Georges Bizet). Though a relative failure at its premiere, this is Bizet's second most performed opera today and is particularly famous for its tenor/baritone duet.[107]
1864 La belle Hélène (Offenbach). Another operetta by Offenbach which pokes fun at Greek mythology.[108]
1864 Mireille (Gounod). Gounod's work is based on the epic poem by Frédéric Mistral and makes use of Provençal folk tunes.[109]
1865 Tristan und Isolde (Wagner). This romantic tragedy is Wagner's most radical work and one of the most revolutionary pieces in music history. The "Tristan chord" began the breakdown of traditional tonality.[111]
1867 Roméo et Juliette (Gounod). Gounod's version of Shakespeare's tragedy is his second most famous work.[116]
1868 Dalibor (Smetana). One of the most successful of Smetana's operas exploring themes from Czech history.[117]
1868 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Wagner). Wagner's only comedy among his mature operas concerns the clash between artistic tradition and innovation.[118]
1868 Hamlet (Thomas). Thomas's opera takes many liberties with its Shakespearean source.[119]
1868 La Périchole (Offenbach). Set in Peru, this operetta mixes comedy and sentimentality.[120]
1868 Mefistofele (Arrigo Boito). Though most famous as a librettist for Verdi, Boito was also a composer and he spent many years working on this musical version of the Faust myth.[121]
1869 Das Rheingold (Wagner). The "preliminary evening" to Wagner's epic Ring cycle tells how the ring was forged and the curse laid upon it.[122]
1870 Die Walküre (Wagner). The second part of the Ring tells the story of the mortals Siegmund and Sieglinde and of how the valkyrie Brünnhilde disobeys her father Wotan, king of the gods.[123]
1871 Aida (Verdi). Features one of the greatest tenor arias of all time, Celeste Aida.
1874 Boris Godunov (Modest Mussorgsky). Mussorgsky's great historical drama shows Russia's descent into anarchy in the early 17th century.[124]
1874 The Two Widows (Smetana). Another comedy by Smetana, the only one of his operas with a non-Czech subject.[126]
1875 Carmen (Bizet). Probably the most famous of all French operas. Critics at the premiere were shocked by Bizet's blend of romanticism and realism.[127]
1876 Siegfried (Richard Wagner). The third part of the Ring sees the hero Siegfried slay the dragon Fafner, win the ring and free Brunhilde from her enchantment.[128]
1876 Götterdämmerung (Wagner). In the final part of the Ring, the curse takes effect leading to the deaths of Siegfried and Brünnhilde and the destruction of the gods themselves.[129]
1876 La Gioconda (Amilcare Ponchielli). Apart from Verdi's Aida, this is the only Italian grand opera to have stayed in international repertory.[59]
1877 L'étoile (Emmanuel Chabrier). This comic piece has been described as "a cross between Carmen and Gilbert and Sullivan, with plenty of Offenbach thrown in".[130]
1881 Hérodiade (Jules Massenet). An opera telling the Biblical story of Salome, Massenet's work was eclipsed by Richard Strauss's treatment of the same subject.[133]
1881 Les contes d'Hoffmann (Jacques Offenbach). Offenbach's attempt at writing a more serious work remained unfinished at his death. Nevertheless, this is his most widely performed opera today.[120]
1883 Lakmé (Léo Delibes). This opéra comique set in the British Raj in India is famous for its "Flower Duet" and "Bell Song".[136]
1884 Le Villi (Puccini). An early operatic work by Puccini with plenty of opportunity for dance.[137]
1884 Manon (Massenet). Massenet's most enduringly popular work along with Werther.[138]
1885 Der Zigeunerbaron (Johann Strauss II). Strauss's operetta was intended to soothe tensions between Austrians and Hungarians in the Habsburg empire.[139]
1887 Le roi malgré lui (Chabrier). Ravel claimed he would rather have written this comic opera than Wagner's Ring cycle, though the plot is notoriously confused.[141]
1887 Otello (Verdi). The first of Verdi's late-period masterpieces was set to a libretto by Arrigo Boito.[78]
1890 Cavalleria rusticana (Pietro Mascagni). A perennial favourite with audiences around the world, this one-acter is usually performed alongside Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.[143]
1890 Prince Igor (Alexander Borodin). Borodin spent 17 years working on this opera off and on, yet never managed to finish it. Most famous for its "Polovtsian dances".[144]
1890 The Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky). In a letter to his brother and librettist the composer said that "the opera is a masterpiece".[145]
1891 L'amico Fritz (Mascagni). This work has been thought of as a late example of opera semiseria.[146]
1892 Iolanta (Tchaikovsky). Tchaikovsky's last lyrical opera set to a libretto by his brother Modest.[147]
1893 Manon Lescaut (Giacomo Puccini). The success of this work established Puccini's reputation as a composer of contemporary music of the first rank.[59]
1894 Thaïs (Massenet). The opera that contains the famous Méditation interlude.[150]
1896 La bohème (Puccini). Debussy is alleged to have said that no one had detailed Paris at that time better than had Puccini in La Boheme.[59]
1897 Königskinder (Humperdinck). Originally a melodrama that blended song and spoken dialogue, the composer adapted the work into an opera proper in 1907.
1898 Fedora (Giordano). Giordano's second most popular opera.[59]
1898 Sadko (Rimsky-Korsakov). The Viking Trader's song from this opera has become extremely popular in Russia.[145]
1899 Cendrillon (Massenet). An immediate success at the time of the premiere, the opera enjoyed 50 performances in 1899 alone.[150]
1900 Louise (Gustave Charpentier). An attempt to provide a French equivalent for Italian verismo, Louise is set in a working-class district of Paris.[153]
1900 Tosca (Giacomo Puccini). Tosca is the most Wagnerian of Puccini's operas, with its frequent use of leitmotif.[59]
1901 Rusalka (Antonín Dvořák). Dvořák's most successful opera with international audiences, based on a folk tale about a water sprite.[154]
1902 Adriana Lecouvreur (Francesco Cilea). Unique among Cilea's operas in that it has remained in the international repertory up to the present time.[59]
1905 Salome (Richard Strauss). A scandalous success at its premiere, Strauss's "decadent" opera set to Oscar Wilde's play is still immensely popular with today's audiences.[159]
1906 Maskarade (Nielsen). Nielsen's high-spirited comedy looks back to the world of The Marriage of Figaro and has become a classic in the composer's native Denmark.[160]
1907 Destiny (Janáček). An important transitional work in Janáček's career as the composer began to look beyond the traditional themes of Czech opera.[164]
1909 Elektra (Strauss). This dark tragedy took Strauss's music to the borders of atonality. It was the composer's first setting of a libretto by his long-term collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal.[165]
1909 The Golden Cockerel (Rimsky-Korsakov). Often considered Rimsky's greatest work, this satire on military incompetence got the composer into trouble with the censors after Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War.[167]
1914 The Nightingale (Igor Stravinsky). Stravinsky's style changed radically during the composition of this short opera, moving away from the influence of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov towards the spiky modernism of the Rite of Spring.[175]
1918 Gianni Schicchi (Puccini). One act in structure, Puccini's work is based on an extract from Dante's Inferno.[59]
1918 Il tabarro (Puccini). The first of the operas that make up Il trittico – along with Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica
1918 Suor Angelica (Puccini). Described by the composer as his favourite among the three operas that comprise Il trittico.[59]
1919 Die Frau ohne Schatten (Strauss). The third full collaboration between Strauss and the librettist Hofmannsthal gestated for six years before completion, and another two years passed before the first performance.[181]
1921 Káťa Kabanová (Leoš Janáček). The first of the great operas of Janáček's late maturity, based on an Ostrovsky play about religious fanaticism and forbidden love in provincial Russia.[183]
1924 Intermezzo (Richard Strauss). A light operetta-style work based on an incident from the composer's own marriage.[181]
1924 The Cunning Little Vixen (Janáček). One of the composer's most popular works, the story is based on a cartoon strip about animals in the Czech countryside.[188]
1925 Doktor Faust (Ferruccio Busoni). Busoni intended this opera to be the climax of his career, but it was left unfinished at his death.[189]
1925 Wozzeck (Alban Berg). One of the key operas of the 20th century. Based on a strikingly unheroic plot, Berg's work blends atonal techniques with more traditional ones.[191]
1926 Cardillac (Paul Hindemith). An opera in Hindemith's neo-classical style about a psychopathic jeweller.[192]
1930 Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Weill). The composition of this opera was problematic, due to tension between the composer and his librettist, Bertolt Brecht.[198]
1934 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Shostakovich). An attack on the music and subject matter of the opera in the Soviet Union's government journal Pravda meant that this work was Shostakovich's last opera.[201]
1935 Ero s onoga svijeta (usually translated as Ero the Joker)byJakov Gotovac. Although he composed many operas, none of the others achieved the enormous success of Ero, in Croatia and abroad. This comic opera based on a Croatian folk tale and brilliant libretto written by Milan Begović was praised by many, among whom Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Inspired by the folklore of Dalmatian hinterland, to the point where the boundary between the folklore and "classical music" ceases to exist, it is considered to be the best and most performed Croatian opera of all time.
1935 Porgy and Bess (George Gershwin). Initially a financial failure, a 1941 production that replaced the work's recitatives with spoken dialogue was a success.[203]
1937 Lulu (Berg). Berg's second opera was unfinished at his death, but a completion by Friedrich Cerha was successfully performed in 1979.[204]
1937 Riders to the Sea (Vaughan Williams). Often rated as Vaughan Williams's finest opera, this short, fatalistic tragedy is set on the Aran Isles in the west of Ireland.[205]
1938 Daphne (Strauss). A mythological opera with lyrical, pastoral music.[206]
1938 Julietta (Bohuslav Martinů). This dreamlike work set in a town where people have lost their memory is "Martinu's operatic masterpiece".[207]
1938 Mathis der Maler (Hindemith). Hindemith's most highly regarded opera is a parable about an artist surviving in a time of crisis, reflecting the composer's own experience under the Nazis.[208]
1945 Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten). A landmark in the history of British opera, this work marked Britten's arrival on the international music scene.[212]
1954 The Fiery Angel (Prokofiev). Prokofiev never saw what is often regarded as his most avant-garde composition performed on the operatic stage.[145]
1954 The Turn of the Screw (Britten). A chamber opera based on the ghost story by Henry James. It is remarkable for its tightly laid out key scheme and active orchestral role.[216]
1959 La voix humaine (Poulenc). A short opera with a single character: a despairing woman on the telephone to her lover.[229]
1960 A Midsummer Night's Dream (Britten). Set to a libretto adapted from the Shakespeare play by himself and his partner Peter Pears, Britten's work is rare in operatic history in that it features a countertenor in the male lead role.[216]
1965 Der junge Lord (Henze). The last composition produced during Henze's dwelling in Italy is considered to be the most Italianate of his dramatic works.[230]
1965 Die Soldaten (Bernd Alois Zimmermann). The first version of the opera was rejected by Cologne Opera as impossible for them to stage: Zimmermann was required to reduce the orchestral forces required and to cut some of the technical demands previously required.[230]
1966 Antony and Cleopatra (Barber). The first version of the opera was set to a libretto consisting entirely of the words of Shakespeare and deemed a failure.[228] Later it was revised by Gian Carlo Menotti and became a success.
1966 The Bassarids (Henze). Henze's opera is set to a libretto by Auden and Kallman, who required that the composer listen to Götterdämmerung before starting to compose the music.[230]
1967 The Bear (Walton). The libretto for Walton's extravaganza was based on Chekov.[230]
1970 The Knot Garden (Tippett). Tippett created his own modern scenario for the libretto of this work, his third opera.[225]
1971 Owen Wingrave (Britten). Britten's anti-war opera was written especially for BBC television.[233]
1972 Taverner (Peter Maxwell Davies). Davies was one of the most significant figures to emerge in British music the 1960s. This opera is based on a legend about the 16th-century composer John Taverner.[234]
1973 Death in Venice (Britten). Britten's last opera was first performed three years before his death.[231]
1976 Einstein on the Beach (Philip Glass). Philip Glass' first opera conceived together with director Robert Wilson introduced minimalist composition and avantgarde performance to the world of opera and remains one of the best known operas of the twentieth century.[235]
1984 Akhnaten (Philip Glass). Unlike his first opera Einstein on the Beach, the writing and style are more conventional and lyrical and much of the music of Akhnaten is some of the most dissonant that Glass has composed.[239]
1986 The Mask of Orpheus (Birtwistle). Birtwistle's most ambitious opera examines the myth of Orpheus from several different angles.[240]
This list was compiled by consulting nine lists of great operas, created by recognized authorities in the field of opera, and selecting all of the operas which appeared on at least five of these (i.e. all operas on a majority of the lists). The lists used were:
"The Standard Repertoire of Grand Opera 1607–1969", a list included in Norman Davies's Europe: a History (Oxford University Press, 1996; paperback edition Pimlico, 1997). ISBN0-7126-6633-8.
Operas appearing in the chronology by Mary Ann SmartinThe Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (Oxford University Press, 1994). ISBN0-19-816282-0.
Table of Contents of The Rough Guide to Opera. by Matthew Boyden. (2002 edition). ISBN1-85828-749-9.
Operas with entries in The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera ed. Paul Gruber (Thames and Hudson, 1993). ISBN0-393-03444-5 and/or Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas ed. John W Freeman (Norton, 1984). ISBN0-393-01888-1
List of operas and their composers in Who's Who in British Opera ed. Nicky Adam (Scolar Press, 1993). ISBN0-85967-894-6
^ abcdefghijklmnBudden, Julian; Forbes, Elizabeth; Maguire, Simon (1998). "La sonnambula". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Vol. 4.
Stein, Louise K. (1999), La púrpura de la Rosa (Introduction to the critical edition of the score and libretto), Ediciones Iberautor Promociones culturales S.R.L. / Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, 1999, ISBN84-8048-292-3 (reprinted with permission of the publisher on Mundoclasico.com). Accessed 5 September 2008.
The Viking Opera Guide. New York: Viking Press. 1993. ISBN0-670-81292-7. Contributions are by noted specialists in their fields
Music
