The Top 55 Most Performed Operas

[André]

Konwitschny died in 1962  . I doubt very much he could possibly have caused a stir in 1999.   

It's been said (I heard it twice on the Saturday Met broadcasts) that the "ABC of opera"  for a company was Aïda, Bohème and Carmen. This is certainly borne out by the Met's own statistics.

The figures are surprising, but not that much. Any smallish, amateur company can stage Zauberflöte. With good reason of course: it's a great piece and it works well with all audiences, including children. Provided you can import a suitable coloratura for the Queen of the Night of course.

Actually if you look at the top 12 on that list, these operas are performed the world over. Whereas Pelléas, Wozzeck, Moses un Aron, Dialogues des Carmélites (heard this week in Montréal), From the House of the Dead, Boris Godunov are sparsely represented on the international opera houses programs, despite their fame.

[Jo498]

It was of course the conductor's son Peter Konwitschny who is an opera director. Sorry, but I assumed that he was known as such, apparently not outside central Europe.

[Marc]

Has anybody seen

Kalman,E (#1)    Die Csardasfurstin    1007   (177)
Kalman,E (#2)    Grafin Mariza    535   (90)
Benatzky (#1)    Im weissen Rossl    488   (63)

I havent even heard of them...

Really?
Especially Die Csárdásfürstin is a major operetta hit.

Have fun!

https://www.youtube.com/v/E5y9ufSC1r4

[Jo498]

Some hit tunes probably known from singer's recitals of the 1930s-60s, easily findable at youtube with great singers from that period (if you check the youtube channel addiobelpassato you can drown yourself in that stuff)

Gräfin Mariza:
Komm, Zigan, komm, Zigan, spiel mir was vor
Komm mit nach Varasdin
Wenn es Abend wird... Grüß mir mein Wien
Einmal möcht ich wieder tanzen

Csardasfürstin:

Machen wir's den Schwalben nach
Tanzen möcht' ich, jauchzen möcht' ich
Ganz ohne Weiber geht die Chose nicht
Nimm Zigeuner deine Geige

As you can see, the topics are often close: love, love sickness, nostalgia, walzer, fiddling hungarian gypsies... but the music is often not so bad if taken in small doses...

[Figleaf]

What an odd list. Can't believe Madama is more performed than Tosca.

I wonder if that's because the Japanese setting makes it more suited to minimalist (i.e. cheapo) sets. When I saw MB at Covent Garden there was just a bare black stage with a paper Japanese screen on it - at least, that was all that I could see from my restricted-view seat. In contrast, Tosca surely demands something more splendid and thus expensive... Agreed about the merits of the two works.

[knight66]

Joe, Thanks, all excellent points.

Mike

[André]

It was of course the conductor's son Peter Konwitschny who is an opera director. Sorry, but I assumed that he was known as such, apparently not outside central Europe.

Sorry, I had no clue  . . The only "son of" I know is Giancarlo Del Monaco. My bad.

[The new erato]

Has anybody seen

Kalman,E (#1)    Die Csardasfurstin    1007   (177)
Kalman,E (#2)    Grafin Mariza    535   (90)
Benatzky (#1)    Im weissen Rossl    488   (63)

I havent even heard of them...

I have them all on disc. Very enjoyable and happy-go-lucky music.

[Jo498]

In the newer stats Tosca is before Butterfly; I don't think such slight differences need special hypotheses for explanation.

These usual suspects by Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Mozart as well as Carmen (which has often been claimed as most popular and most widely played/staged opera) have been fairly stable in the top 20 for quite a while, I believe. Although I admit that I am puzzled at Nabucco before Trovatore, Otello and some other placements, so I would not want to deny some strange fluctuations.

More interesting than this is certainly the huge dropoff in popularity for some German language operas outside of German-speaking countries. Zauberflöte seems to work best internationally, then probably Abduction/Entführung and Fidelio but Hänsel and Gretel, Freischütz and stuff like the operettas mentioned above seem to be largely restricted to the Germanosphere.
It is maybe not quite like Gilbert and Sullivan or Zarzuela but close and it is understandable that not all kinds of music and musical theatre travel equallly well. The same goes probably for some Russian (Rimsky and Glinka are not frequently staged in the West) and maybe also Czech operas. Not sure about the French beyond Carmen and Offenbach (and he was actually a German Jew); French Opera had very special traditions as we all know but I am not sure how much of this applies today.

[Spineur]

Hi Jo,

As soon as I find time I will run the statistics by country.  This should be interesting.  What are the most popular operas in the US, UK, germany, France...  I am pretty curious.
I dont think I will be able to do Japan as they are not covered completly.

To be followed

[PerfectWagnerite]

Hi Jo,

As soon as I find time I will run the statistics by country.  This should be interesting.  What are the most popular operas in the US, UK, germany, France...  I am pretty curious.
I dont think I will be able to do Japan as they are not covered completly.

To be followed

Don't know about other countries but this is a list for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. Number 2 on the list is Aida, or grand opera epitomized. Also on the top 25 are such big productions like Die Walkure, Tristan, Lohengrin, Tannhauser, Meistersinger. Suffice to say NY audiences like their Wagner.

[Marc]

[...] but the music is often not so bad if taken in small doses...

Exactly my feelings about the genre, too.
One of my faves is "Hör' ich Zymbalklänge" from Léhar's Zigeunerliebe: "immer kann der Mensch nicht traurig sein"!

[Wendell_E]

Don't know about other countries but this is a list for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. Number 2 on the list is Aida, or grand opera epitomized. Also on the top 25 are such big productions like Die Walkure, Tristan, Lohengrin, Tannhauser, Meistersinger. Suffice to say NY audiences like their Wagner.

Or liked, anyway.  Those statistics go back to the Met's opening in 1882, so they include periods when Wagner was a much bigger presence at the Met than he's been recently. Take Lohengrin, the most often performed opera at the Met: It falls between Barbiere and Lucia in number of performances (I also include the next two most-performed operas at the Met, to get the second-most performed Wagner):

622 Il Barbiere di Siviglia
618 Lohengrin
599 Lucia di Lammermoor
556 Don Giovanni
537 Die Walküre

But if we limit it to the last 50 years:

309 Il Barbiere di Siviglia
86 Lohengrin
240 Lucia di Lammermoor
287 Don Giovanni
139 Die Walküre

There hasn't been a Met Lohengrin in the last decade, though I'm guessing their Robert Wilson production is partly to blame. And the Wieland Wagner production from the opening season of the New Met (i.e., the beginning of the fifty-year period) wasn't a great success, and disappeared after two seasons.

[Spineur]

Hi Jo,

As soon as I find time I will run the statistics by country. 
To be followed

Sorry, it doe not appear possible.  It is possible to find the most performed operas worldwide by composers of a specific nationality, but not performed in a specific country.
Here are a few.  The first number on the right is the number of performances, the second the number of productions.  I ran only a few countries.  Overall, Italian operas are still the KING

ITALIAN OPERAS
it (#1)   Verdi (#1)    La traviata    4190   (869)
it (#2)   Puccini (#1)    La boheme    3131   (672)
it (#3)   Puccini (#2)    Tosca    2694   (608)
it (#4)   Puccini (#3)    Madama Butterfly    2641   (634)
it (#5)   Rossini (#1)    Il barbiere di Siviglia    2549   (591)
it (#6)   Verdi (#2)    Rigoletto    2285   (523)
it (#7)   Verdi (#3)    Aida    1639   (392)
it (#8)   Donizetti (#1)    L'elisir d'amore    1574   (378)
it (#9)   Verdi (#4)    Nabucco    1280   (314)
it (#10)   Puccini (#4)    Turandot    1225   (255)

AUSTRIAN OPERAS

at (#1)   Mozart (#1)    Die Zauberflote    3310   (561)
at (#2)   Mozart (#2)    Le nozze di Figaro    2483   (545)
at (#3)   Mozart (#3)    Don Giovanni    2299   (473)
at (#4)   Strauss,J (#1)    Die Fledermaus    2207   (393)
at (#5)   Mozart (#4)    Cosi fan tutte    1538   (364)
at (#6)   Mozart (#5)    Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail    855   (163)
at (#7)   Benatzky (#1)    Im weissen Rossl    488   (63)
at (#8)   Mozart (#6)    La clemenza di Tito    302   (65)
at (#9)   Strauss,J (#2)    Der Zigeunerbaron    293   (58)
at (#10)   Mozart (#7)    Idomeneo re di Creta    276   (62)

GERMAN OPERAS
de (#1)   Humperdinck (#1)    Hansel und Gretel [c]   1629   (299)
de (#2)   Wagner,R (#1)    Der fliegende Hollander    957   (216)
de (#3)   Beethoven (#1)    Fidelio    560   (111)
de (#4)   Strauss,R (#1)    Der Rosenkavalier    548   (105)
de (#5)   Strauss,R (#2)    Salome    512   (110)
de (#6)   Wagner,R (#2)    Lohengrin    490   (101)
de (#7)   Wagner,R (#3)    Tristan und Isolde    489   (132)
de (#8)   Gluck (#1)    Orfeo ed Euridice    485   (112)
de (#9)   Weber (#1)    Der Freischutz    453   (72)
de (#10)   Wagner,R (#4)    Tannhauser 433   (102)

RUSSIAN OPERAS

ru (#1)   Tchaikovsky,P (#1)    Eugene Onegin    1522   (347)
ru (#2)   Tchaikovsky,P (#2)    Pikovaya Dama    438   (119)
ru (#3)   Musorgsky (#1)    Boris Godunov    409   (109)
ru (#4)   Tchaikovsky,P (#3)    Iolanta    395   (105)
ru (#5)   Borodin (#1)    Prince Igor    294   (79)
ru (#6)   Stravinsky (#1)    The Rake's Progress    257   (52)
ru (#7)   Prokofiev (#1)    The Love for Three Oranges    233   (47)
ru (#8)   Rimsky-Korsakov (#1)    The Tsar's Bride    213   (73)
ru (#9)   Shostakovich (#1)    Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk    213   (42)
ru (#10)   Stravinsky (#2)    Le Rossignol    119   (28)


FRENCH OPERAS

fr (#1)   Bizet (#1)    Carmen    3280   (691)
fr (#2)   Offenbach (#1)    Les contes d'Hoffmann    730   (145)
fr (#3)   Gounod (#1)    Faust    567   (126)
fr (#4)   Bizet (#2)    Les Pecheurs de perles    377   (110)
fr (#6)   Offenbach (#2)    Orphee aux enfers    363   (76)
fr (#7)   Gounod (#2)    Romeo et Juliette    309   (109)
fr (#8)   Debussy (#1)    Pelleas et Melisande    265   (73)
fr (#9)   Poulenc (#1)    La Voix humaine    242   (80)
fr (#10)   Poulenc (#2)    Dialogues des Carmelites    241   (49)

CZECH OPERAS

cz (#1)   Dvorak,A (#1)    Rusalka    641   (113)
cz (#2)   Smetana (#1)    Prodana nevesta    416   (73)
cz (#3)   Janacek (#1)    Jenufa    371   (79)
cz (#4)   Janacek (#2)    The Cunning Little Vixen    356   (68)
cz (#5)   Janacek (#3)    Kat'a Kabanova    209   (61)
cz (#6)   Janacek (#4)    Vec Makropulos    154   (36)
cz (#7)   Nedbal (#1)    Polenblut    83   (15)
cz (#8)   Dvorak,A (#2)    Jakobin    62   (
cz (#9)   Ivanovic (#1) Carokraj    57   (6)
cz (#10)   Martinu (#1)    Juliette    52   (7)

UNITED KINGDOM

uk (#1)   Handel (#1)    Giulio Cesare in Egitto    273   (44)
uk (#2)   Handel (#2)    Alcina    271   (55)
uk (#3)   Britten (#1)    The Turn of the Screw    252   (64)
uk (#4)   Britten (#2)    Peter Grimes    250   (51)
uk (#5)   Britten (#3)    A Midsummer Night's Dream    235   (46)
uk (#6)   Purcell (#1)    Dido and Aeneas    223   (78)
uk (#7)   Purcell (#2)    King Arthur    162   (30)
uk (#8)   Handel (#3)    Serse    159   (36)
uk (#9)   Purcell (#3)    The Fairy Queen    143   (40)
uk (#10)   Britten (#4)    The Rape of Lucretia    140   (44)

UNITED STATES

us (#1)   Korngold (#1)    Die tote Stadt    180   (29)
us (#2)   Gershwin (#1)    Porgy and Bess    172   (24)
us (#3)   Bernstein (#1) Candide    146   (30)
us (#4)   Menotti (#1)    Amahl and the Night Visitors [c]   87   (25)
us (#5)   Bernstein (#2) Trouble in Tahiti 69   (19)
us (#6)   Barab (#1)    Little Red Riding Hood [c]   64   (3)
us (#7)   Menotti (#2)    The Telephone 61   (28)
us (#8)   Glass (#1)    Satyagraha 55   (7)
us (#9)   Heggie (#1) Dead Man Walking    51   (14)
us (#10)   Glass (#2) The Fall of the House of Usher 51   (10)

JAPAN

Hosokawa (#1) Matsukaze    23   (6)
jp (#2)   Hosokawa (#2)  Hanjo    15   (3)
jp (#3)   Osada (#1) Son of Heaven    12   (1)
jp (#4)   Matsumura (#1)    Silence    9   (2)
jp (#5)   Fujikura (#1) Solaris    7   (3)
jp (#7)   Dan (#1)    Yuzuru    5   (3)
jp (#8)   Hosokawa (#4)   Stilles Meer    5   (1)
jp (#9)   Ikebe (#1) Rokumeikan    4   (1)
jp (#10)   Narita (#1) [f]   Yume    3   (2)

[Jo498]

Yes, I found this confusing when I used operabase some years ago. Because first I thought "fr (#1)" meant the most-performed opera in France, not the most-performed by a French composer. And the nationalities are also confusing, even misleading, because most people tend to think of operas in terms of language, not the nationality of the composer, especially if it is adopted nationalities like Korngold. When he wrote "Die tote Stadt" Korngold was Austrian and the opera language is German, so this is not an American opera by any stretch. Similarly for Handel, whose operas belong to the Italian baroque, not the German or British.

One could probably get the stats for some countries from other sources, e.g. here for Germany from 2006/07 until 13/14. To get a better idea one should consider the column "Inszenierungen" (stagings) because e.g. L'italiana in Algeri is on 16 with 81 performances but they are from only 2 different stagings (or maybe there were also some unstaged performances). In any case in the list linked below the rather high placements of L'italiana, Nabucco, Werther and Nicolais Merry Wives of Windsor are somewhat surprising to me (And Peter & the wolf is not an opera...how does it get into the list). I miss Mozart's Entführung and Beethoven's Fidelio and am sure they would be top 30 in a long term statistics. Apparently they left out operettas, otherwise Fledermaus would have been up there.

http://www.miz.org/intern/uploads/statistik22.pdf

The top 10 are not surprising, though:

Zauberflöte
Hänsel & Gretel
La Boheme
La Traviata
Nozze di Figaro
Tosca
Don Giovanni
Cosi fan tutte
Carmen
Rigoletto

[knight66]

You would not get much info searching Scotland for this current year. From Jan Scottish Opera will do Bluebeard, Peleas, a new piece, The Trial, a Ravel in concert then a run of almost 40 performances of Mozart's Figaro. This is what happens when the company is left to struggle, not even a sniff for the once full time opera chorus and some of the Mozart is travelling chamber opera style. So the orchestra is not fully employed now either.

Mike