List of famous operas

Useful lists are either complete lists or selective lists. This page is a selective list.

Historically significant operas

This is a list of operas which are historically significant but not performed with any regularity. They are ordered chronologically by first performance.

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• Jacopo Peri
• Euridice (Florence 1600); considered the first opera in European history
• Claudio Monteverdi
• Orfeo (Mantua 1607); first operatic masterwork
• Francesca Caccini
• La liberazione di Ruggiero (Warsaw, 1628); first Italian opera performed outside of Italy, first opera by a woman
• Stefano Landi
• Il Sant'Alessio (Rome, 1632); first opera on a historical rather than mythological subject
• Henry Purcell
• Dido and Aeneas (Chelsea, London, 1689); first English language opera
• Gian Carlo Menotti
• The Old Maid and the Thief (NBC, Radio, 1939); first opera composed for radio
• Amahl and the Night Visitors (New York, 1951); first opera composed for television
• Philip Glass
• Einstein on the Beach (Avignon 1976); first opera composed using minimalism