Your Top 5 Favorite Operas

[Cato]

Only 5?    Well, maybe this time I will follow the rules! 

Alphabetically...

Doktor Faust - Busoni

Cardillac - Hindemith

The Fiery Angel - Prokofiev

The Invisible City of Kitezh... - Rimsky-Korsakov

Erwartung - Schoenberg

Elektra - R. Strauss

Goetterdaemmerung - Wagner

Sorry, no Italians, no Frenchmen!

Okay, so I tried to follow the rule, I really tried!  0:)  And I did say "maybe" ! 

[The new erato]

Only 5?    Well, maybe this time I will follow the rules! 



Cardillac - Hindemith

The Fiery Angel - Prokofiev

The Invisible City of Kitezh... - Rimsky-Korsakov

I like those three a lot as well.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Among my five will have to be Meistersinger, Troyens, Falstaff, Wozzeck, and Figaro.

[Sergeant Rock]

Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen
Wagner Parsifal
Wagner Lohengrin
Mozart Die Zauberflöte
Strauss Der Rosenkavalier

Sarge

[ritter]

The Fiery Angel - Prokofiev

+1 A gripping work! Will be on my (long) list of runner-ups. Another one, which AFAIK has not been mentioned yet by anyone, would be Les Troyens...

One very interesting phenonmenon: in general, there does not seem to be much love lost on Giuseppe Verdi the composer (I for one have serious reservations about his art). And yet, Falstaff appears in several of the lists submitted (incluiding mine). A perfect opera IMHO.    To be fair, so does Otello (of which I'm not that fond of)...

[North Star]

The Fiery Angel
Le nozze di Figaro
Cunning Little Vixen
Les Troyens
L'enfant et les sortilèges

[Mirror Image]

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!! 

Sounds like a plan. Happy listening, my friend!

[Brian]

TO SEE LIVE
1. Falstaff
2. Don Giovanni
3. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
4. Die Zauberflöte
5. Beatrice et Benedict

TO JUST LISTEN
1. Falstaff
2-5. Let's just say Berlioz and Janacek and leave it at that
Hon. Mention: Carmen

I really need to listen to the complete Grimes and Troyens, rather than the excerpts, sometime soon. Also all the Janacek I haven't heard.

[TheGSMoeller]

Found a Top 10 poll we did a few years ago, has changed a little, although I will say that these top 3 will never change...

Monteverdi: Orfeo
Mozart: The Magic Flute
Berg: Wozzeck

Seeing Wagner's Parsifal a few years ago performed live really changed my perspective on the piece, as many live performances can easily do, especially with Operas when you're immersing yourself into a fully staged production. Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten has become one of my most listened to operas of the past few years, such a magical work. So I'll save my last two spots for the these two operas I've listened to the most the past few years.

[TheGSMoeller]

I really need to listen to the complete Grimes and Troyens, rather than the excerpts, sometime soon. Also all the Janacek I haven't heard.

Lyric Opera of Chicago is performing Troyens later this season. 5 hours of opera! You can do it!

[Karl Henning]

The Fiery Angel
Le nozze di Figaro
Cunning Little Vixen
Les Troyens
L'enfant et les sortilèges

Fine list!

[Karl Henning]

Lyric Opera of Chicago is performing Troyens later this season. 5 hours of opera! You can do it!

One of the pinnacles of our experiences in both the Met, and Symphony Hall (a concert performance, natch).  Do not hesitate, Brian!

[ritter]

The Fiery Angel
Le nozze di Figaro
Cunning Little Vixen
Les Troyens
L'enfant et les sortilèges

Great list, yes, were it not for the fact that there's no Wagner on it !!! 

Well, I guess we can still be friends, Karlo 

[Karl Henning]

Great list, yes, were it not for the fact that there's no Wagner on it !!! 

Hadn't thought of that. Now, I like the list better yet!  0:)

(Just kidding Rafael.)

[Cato]

The Fiery Angel - Prokofiev

+1 A gripping work! Will be on my (long) list of runner-ups.

I first heard it over 50 years ago in a French version on some fairly scratched records from the public library.  (I found the French difficult to follow in the libretto: all those letters and they just disappear somehow when voiced! ) 

"Gripping" is a good adjective for the opera!

Cardillac - Hindemith

The Fiery Angel - Prokofiev

The Invisible City of Kitezh... - Rimsky-Korsakov

I like those three a lot as well.

Kitezh has some simply glorious moments: the first time I heard it was also over 5 decades ago, and I believe the set of records had come in from the Soviet Union some time in the 1950's, which I found unusual, given the status of Khrushchev etc. in the U.S. and the West in general back then.

If you have not yet heard Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Cardillac, you must!



And believe it or not, my all-boys Catholic high school had enough opera lovers for debates on e.g. Wagner vs. Rimsky, or Janacek vs. Britten (both of whose works were being recorded more often in the early stereo days).  While the plebeians    might debate e.g. the Beatles vs. the Beach Boys (the Californians win, of course), we (probably there were 8 of us, so, not a majority! ) had slightly different interests at the time!

[North Star]

Fine list!

Cheers, Karl.

Great list, yes, were it not for the fact that there's no Wagner on it !!! 

Well, I guess we can still be friends, Karlo 

I recall liking Parsifal very much. I don't think I've gotten further than the first two from Ring. Fine music in there, for sure, but it is rather long. 

Hadn't thought of that. Now, I like the list better yet!  0:)

(Just kidding Rafael.)

*chortle*

[Mirror Image]

Berg: Wozzeck

Pounds the table!

[Karl Henning]

One of these days (really) I'll sit down with the Ring properly.

(Not until I'm done with the symphony, though.)

[ritter]

Hadn't thought of that. Now, I like the list better yet!  0:)

(Just kidding Rafael.)

Well, once again, I suppose we can also still be friends. 

But don't despair, Karlo and Karl: you'll eventually see th light 

I recall liking Parsifal very much. I don't think I've gotten further than the first two from Ring. Fine music in there, for sure, but it is rather long. 

Wagner operas are like Bruckner symphonies: they're too long but, if they were any shorter, they wouldn't be as good 

[Karl Henning]

Well, once again, I suppose we can also still be friends. 

I rely on it!