Your Top 5 Favorite Operas

[Mirror Image]

What are your 'Top 5 Favorite Operas'? Opera is not a genre I gravitate towards very often, but when I do I almost always reach for one of these five favorites:

Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle
Berg: Wozzeck
Janáček: Káťa Kabanová
Ravel: L'enfant et les sortilèges
Szymanowski: King Roger

Honorable mentions: Berg's Lulu, Janáček's From the House of the Dead, Britten's Death in Venice, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Martinů's Julietta, Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Strauss' Elektra

[Mirror Image]

Oh yay, I get to make a list!!

Ok, I'm not the biggest opera fanatic but these operas mean a lot to me and have effected me in someway or another:

Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle (I'll probably say this is my favourite forever!)
Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre
Stockhausen's Licht
Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury (If that counts too!)
Wagner's Ring Cycle
Feldman's Neither (Though it's sort of a melodrama)
Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron
Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex

Interesting list. You haven't heard any of Janáček's operas?

[Mirror Image]

To be honest, I've only dabbled into his string quartets. But a recommendation could change that? 

You should definitely check out any of his mature operas: Jenufa through From the House of the Dead.

[anothername]

Verdi ; Don Carlo
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Puccini: Tosca.
Verdi: La Traviata.
Puccini: La Boheme

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Limiting to 5....

Britten: Albert Herring
Adams: Nixon in China
Berg: Wozzeck
Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

But also....
Brett Dean: Bliss
Britten: Peter Grimes
Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos
Glass: Einstein on the Beach
Glass: Akhnaten
Wagner: Ring Cycle
Wagner: Tannhäuser
Beethoven: Fidelio
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
Handel: Giulio Cesare

[North Star]

I'm just looking through his works list at the moment and it appears I have heard the Glagolitic Mass and Sinfonietta. And I forgot he was the one who composed The Cunning Little Vixen (which I haven't heard, but I see mentioned now and then).

Ohh yes! The two operas you mention have very interesting plots, thanks Mirror Image, I'll be listening to quite a bit of him this week!! 

I have a feeling you would like the plots (and hopefully the music, too ) of Brouček and Makropulos Case. Also, the Violin Concerto is probably his greatest orchestral score, based on the same material that is used in The House of the Dead, only in a much more condensed form, of course. The later, the better (and more) is a good rule of thumb with Janáček. I'd say check out the last three, and the fifth first - House, Vixen, Makropulos, and Brouček.

[The new erato]

Difficult question, I don't listen to much opera (outside barque) any longer. Some that have impressed me much, are (post-baroque):

Gluck: Orfeo and Euridice
Mozart: Magic Flute
Tchaikovsky: Eugen Onegin (my favorite Tchaikovsky work)
Verdi: Otello
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth

Wozzeck is great as well, it's been too long since I've seen it. Pelleas and Melisande too. Oddballs like Hindemith's Cardillac and Harmonie der Welt, Floyd's Susannah and Street Scene by Weill deserve a mention as well....and I suspect I should dig up some of Janaceks works that I haven't listened to in ages.

[ritter]

If it has to be only five:

- Richard Wagner: Parsifal
- Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
- W. A. Mozart: Don Giovanni
- Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
- Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff

The runner-ups would include Wozzeck and Lulu, The Ring and Tristan, Così and Figaro, Elektra, Fidelio, Enescu's Oedipe, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero, and many, many more...

[GioCar]

Only 5? Ok, I'll play

Wagner's Ring
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Verdi: Falstaff
Mozart: Don Giovanni

More or less in that order

[San Antone]

Debussy ~ Pelleas
Wagner ~ Tristan
Puccini ~ Tosca
Verdi ~ Otello
Monteverdi ~ Orfeo

[Florestan]

In chronological order

Mozart - Don Giovanni
Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia
Weber - Der Freischütz
Bellini - La sonnambula
Bizet -  Carmen

[Jo498]

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas
Mozart: Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro
Beethoven: Fidelio
Wagner: Tristan & Isolde

[knight66]

Don Giovanni
Don Carlos
Tristan und Isolde
Elektra
Peter Grimes

Mike

[DaveF]

Weber - Der Freischütz

+1.  Kleiber for your favourite recording, perhaps?  I've always meant to hear, but so far haven't, the version Berlioz did for the Paris Opéra, with recitatives composed by him.

Other than that for me: Monteverdi L'Orfeo, Wagner Die Walküre, Britten Peter Grimes, Tippett The Midsummer Marriage.

[Florestan]

+1.  Kleiber for your favourite recording, perhaps?

You bet. One of the most glorious recordings ever made.

Kubelik and Boehm are not bad either. Joseph Keilbert is praised too but have never heard it.

I've always meant to hear, but so far haven't, the version Berlioz did for the Paris Opéra, with recitatives composed by him.

Has it been recorded? Did he tamper with the score too? 

[Jo498]

I think it has been recorded but I have never heard it. The most famous bit is of course Berlioz orchestration of "Invitation to the Dance" that served as ballett (obligatory in Paris) for the French version.

[asin]B00000JQET[/asin]

[Florestan]

I think it has been recorded but I have never heard it. The most famous bit is of course Berlioz orchestration of "Invitation to the Dance" that served as ballett (obligatory in Paris) for the French version.

[asin]B00000JQET[/asin]

I suspected it. Freischuetz sung in French and with ballet scenes --- much as I like Berlioz, I´m afraid I shall pass on this one.   

[DaveF]

Did he tamper with the score too? 

No, surely not.  Berlioz revered Weber, and had harsh words for other tamperers (hurling abuse at orchestra and conductor in an early Paris performance that used flutes instead of piccolos).  Equally to the point, he probably wasn't being paid to do that.

Sadly, that recording is a bit too expensive (in Europe) and too unrecommended to entice me.

[amw]

Le nozze di Figaro
Don Giovanni
Prometeo
Luci miei traditrici
Neither
Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern

[Jo498]

No, surely not.  Berlioz revered Weber, and had harsh words for other tamperers (hurling abuse at orchestra and conductor in an early Paris performance that used flutes instead of piccolos).  Equally to the point, he probably wasn't being paid to do that.

I also think it was a labor of love but I am not sure it's more than a historical curiosity today. I quite like the orchestral version of "Aufforderung", the grandfather of all orchestral waltzes, though.
There is at least another one by Weingartner who didn't like Berlioz' orchestration for some reason; in any case Weingartner tampered a little more and brought all the waltz themes together in double or triple counterpoint or some such feat in the end