List of famous operas

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

Standard operatic repertory

This list comprises the standard operatic repertory, arranged alphabetically by composer followed by city and date of first staged performance. All the operas in this list are discussed in standard guidebooks, such as The Penguin Guide to Opera, ed. Amanda Holden, 1994. Many splendid and under-appreciated masterpieces, aside from operatic curiosities, can be found in entries under the names of their individual composers.

Related Topics:
Composer - Composer

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In many opera houses this international repertory is supplemented by local standards. An American list, for example, might include George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, or Samuel Barber's Vanessa. Debate over the accepted canon tends to be most intense around the periphery.

Related Topics:
American - George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess - Carlisle Floyd - Susannah - Samuel Barber - Vanessa - Canon

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Details of plot, anecdotes and history of composition and production, etc. are found in the operas' individual entries (linked). These lists are not complete: complete lists of composers' operas are to be found in the composers' individual entries (linked), and in :Category:Operas.

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• Béla Bartók
• Bluebeard's Castle (Budapest 1918)
• Ludwig van Beethoven
• Fidelio (Vienna 1805)
• Vincenzo Bellini
• La Sonnambula (Milan 1831)
• I Puritani (Paris 1835)
• Norma (Milan 1831)
• Alban Berg
• Wozzeck (Berlin 1925)
• Lulu (Zurich 1937)
• Hector Berlioz
• Les Troyens (Paris 1863)
• Georges Bizet
• Les Pecheurs de Perles (Paris 1863)
• Carmen (Paris 1875)
• Arrigo Boito
• Mefistofele (Milan 1868)
• Alexander Borodin
• Prince Igor (Saint Petersburg 1890)
• Benjamin Britten
• Albert Herring (Glyndebourne 1947)
• Peter Grimes (London 1945)
• Billy Budd (London 1951)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (Aldeburgh 1960)
• Gustave Charpentier
• Louise (Paris 1900)
• Francesco Cilea
• Adriana Lecouvreur (Milan 1902)
• Claude Debussy
• Pelléas et Mélisande (Paris 1902)
• Léo Delibes
• Lakmé (Paris 1883)
• Gaetano Donizetti
• L'Elisir d'Amore (Milan 1832)
• Lucia di Lammermoor (Naples 1835)
• The Daughter of the Regiment (Paris 1840)
• Don Pasquale (Paris 1843)
• Friedrich von Flotow
• Martha (Vienna 1847)
• Umberto Giordano
• André Chénier (Milan 1896)
• Christoph Willibald Gluck
• Orfeo ed Euridice (Paris 1774)
• Alceste (Paris 1776)
• Iphigénie en Tauride (Paris 1779)
• Charles Gounod
• Faust (Paris 1859)
• Roméo et Juliette (Paris 1867)
• George Frideric Handel
• Agrippina (Venice 1710)
• Alcina (London 1735)
• Ariodante (London 1735)
• Giulio Cesare (London 1724)
• Semele (London 1744)
• Serse (London 1738)
• Engelbert Humperdinck
• Hansel und Gretel (Weimar 1893)
• Leo? Janá?ek
• Jen?fa (Brno 1904)
• The Cunning Little Vixen (Brno 1924)
• Ruggiero Leoncavallo
• Pagliacci (Milan 1892)
• Pietro Mascagni
• Cavalleria Rusticana (Rome 1890)
• Jules Massenet
• Werther (Paris 1892)
• Manon (Paris 1884)
• Thaïs (Paris 1894)
• Giacomo Meyerbeer
• Les Huguenots (Paris 1836)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Idomeneo (Munich 1781)
• The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) (Vienna 1782)
• The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) (Vienna 1786)
• Don Giovanni (Prague 1787)
• Cosi fan tutte (Vienna 1790)
• La Clemenza di Tito (Prague 1791)
• The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) (Vienna 1791)
• Modest Mussorgsky
• Boris Godunov (Saint Petersburg 1874)
• Khovanshchina (Saint Petersburg, 1886)
• Carl Otto Nicolai
• Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (Berlin 1849)
• Jacques Offenbach
• Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann) (Paris 1881)
• Amilcare Ponchielli
• La Gioconda (Milan 1876)
• Francis Poulenc
• Dialogues of the Carmelites (Dialogues des Carmelites) (Milan 1957)
• Sergei Prokofiev
• The Love of Three Oranges
• The Fiery Angel
• War and Peace
• Giacomo Puccini
• La bohème (Turin 1896)
• Tosca (Rome 1900)
• Madame Butterfly (Milan 1904)
• Il Trittico (Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi) (New York City 1918)
• Manon Lescaut (Turin 1893)
• Turandot (Milan 1926)
• La fanciulla del West (New York City 1910)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• The Golden Cockerel (Saint Petersburg 1907)
• Gioacchino Rossini
• L'Italiana in Algeri (Venice 1813)
• The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia) (Rome 1816)
• La Cenerentola (Rome 1817)
• Camille Saint-Saëns
• Samson et Dalila (Weimar 1877)
• Dmitri Shostakovich
• The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Leningrad 1934)
• Bedrich Smetana
• The Bartered Bride (Prague 1866)
• Johann Strauss
• Die Fledermaus (Vienna 1874)
• Richard Strauss
• Salome (Dresden 1905)
• Elektra (Dresden 1909)
• Der Rosenkavalier (Dresden 1911)
• Ariadne auf Naxos (Stuttgart 1912; Vienna 1916)
• Die Frau ohne Schatten (Vienna 1919)
• Igor Stravinsky
• The Rake's Progress (Venice 1951)
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Eugene Onegin (Moscow 1879)
• The Queen of Spades (Pique Dame) (Saint Petersburg 1890)
• Ambroise Thomas
• Mignon (Paris 1866)
• Giuseppe Verdi
• Nabucco (Milan 1842)
• Ernani (Venice 1844)
• Macbeth (Florence 1847)
• Rigoletto (Venice 1851)
• Il Trovatore (Rome 1853)
• La Traviata (Venice 1853)
• Un Ballo in Maschera (Rome 1859)
• La Forza del Destino (The Force of Destiny) (Saint Petersburg 1862)
• Don Carlo (Paris 1867)
• Aida (Cairo 1871)
• Simon Boccanegra (revised) (Milan 1881)
• Otello (Milan 1887)
• Falstaff (Milan 1893)
• Richard Wagner
• The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer) (Dresden 1843)
• Tannhäuser (Dresden 1845)
• Lohengrin (Weimar 1850)
• Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Munich 1868)
• Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) (complete tetralogy: Bayreuth 1876)
• Das Rheingold (Munich 1869)
• Die Walküre (Munich 1870)
• Siegfried (Bayreuth 1876)
• Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods) (Bayreuth 1876)
• Tristan and Isolde (Munich 1865)
• Parsifal (Bayreuth 1882)
• Carl Maria von Weber
• Der Freischütz (Berlin 1824)