Your Top 5 Favorite Operas

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Wagner: Ring
Puccini: Fanciulla del West
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
R. Strauss: Elektra
Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande

[Cato]

I'm really surprised I forgot Busoni's Dr Faust, because I'm a huge fan of his music.

(well not quite as much as SOME composers, but you get the drift)

Again, as with Cardillac, the performance to hear (or at least I think so 0:) )  is from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau:

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[mszczuj]

Tristan and Der Ring if the latter is four.
If Der Ring is one other are Parsifal, Salome and Elektra.

[knight66]

I think that is five people who have included Elektra, similar to the number for Don Giovanni. I think it is interesting that Elektra gets so many endorsements. It is not as though people can whistle along with the famous tunes. I don't think there is a full disc of excerpts of it. But it is such an immersive experience and works very well in sound only as an opera of the mind. It is also what I think of as an opera for adults, which looks seriously at the human condition.

I was fortunate to hear Nilsson live in it and in her prime. Pretty shattering.

Mike

[mc ukrneal]

I would go with:
Mozart: Marriage of Figaro
Verdi: Otello
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel
Puccini: Turandot
Britten: Turn of the Screw

Hard to leave others off, but that is my list for today. Don't ask me tomorrow!

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I would go with:
Mozart: Marriage of Figaro
Verdi: Otello
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel
Puccini: Turandot
Britten: Turn of the Screw

Hard to leave others off, but that is my list for today. Don't ask me tomorrow!

Of all the Britten, that is an interesting choice. Why that one?

[Chronochromie]

Eh, I'll do 15 so I won't feel bad for leaving one out.

Monteverdi - L'Orfeo

Rameau - Les Boreades

Mozart - Così fan tutte

Berlioz - Les Troyens

Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov

Wagner - Parsifal

Verdi - Falstaff

Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande

Bartók - Bluebeard's Castle

Berg - Wozzeck

Ravel - L'enfant et les sortilèges

Poulenc - Les mamelles de Tirésias

Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress

Messiaen - Saint François d'Assise

Sciarrino - Luci mie traditrici

[kishnevi]

My list
Nozze di Figaro
Falstaff
Turandot
Meistersinger von Nurnberg
Barbiere di Siviglia

That may be a boring list, but I've loved them all since I first heard them as a teen.

As I typed, I realized all five are, if not comic operas, operas with happy endings.

[trazom]

Mozart: Idomeneo( as good as the Da Ponte operas and the Magic Flute, or any opera by any other composer for that matter); La Clemenza di Tito is another favorite, but mostly for the music.

Wagner: Die Walküre

Purcell: Dido& Aeneas

Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle 

[nathanb]

Would Xenakis' Oresteia count as an opera?

I'm listening to it now, it's another work I've been highly fond of for a long time!

I'd have to examine it once more to be sure, because it's been a while. But it always seemed to be leaning a little more towards the cantata/oratorio end of things.

Anyway... I know that it would go:

1. LICHT
2. Lulu

And then I'd have to think way harder about the rest...

[Sergeant Rock]

Elektra...I was fortunate to hear Nilsson live in it and in her prime. Pretty shattering.

Mike

Indeed. Saw her (and Solti) at Covent Garden, June 1972.

Sarge

[knight66]

Indeed. Saw her (and Solti) at Covent Garden, June 1972.

Sarge

No, Not with Solti, but it was in a small theatre which provided for overwhelming waves of sound.

I was lucky years later to sing in a couple of Solti performances, galvanising.

Mike

[Rinaldo]

Glad to see all the love for L'Orfeo, it's on my list as well.

The rest goes something like this:

Handel – Rinaldo (who would've guessed..)
Martinů – Julietta
Glass – Akhnaten
Britten – Gloriana

[The new erato]

Glad to see all the love for L'Orfeo, it's on my list as well.

It's my favorite opera as well, though I consciously avoided baroque operas, since that would have filled my list and made it impossible to choose. And I find baroque opera (particularly the high baroque seria) seriously different from later opera, so I found it valid to exclude the genre.

[TheGSMoeller]

Glad to see all the love for L'Orfeo, it's on my list as well.

The rest goes something like this:

Handel – Rinaldo (who would've guessed..)
Martinů – Julietta
Glass – Akhnaten
Britten – Gloriana

Great list, Rinaldo. and Orfeo will always be a top choice for me as well. And every recording I've heard, and DvD/BRDisc I've seen, all offer a completely unique sound and emotional tone.

Not familiar with Handel's you listed but will seek it out. And I've always found Gloriana to have one the most powerful finales.

[arpeggio]

My three favorite operas would be:

Peter Grimes
Boris Goodenough
Tosca

Four and five would depend on which side of the bed I got up from that morning.  They could come from the following:

Doctor Atomic
Nixon in China
Vanessa
Bluebeard's Castle
Lulu
Wozzeck
Benvenuto Cellini
Carmen
Les Troyens
Billy Budd
Aniara (One of the best sci/fi operas)
Rusalka
Porgy and Bess
Bomarzo (I just discovered this opera by Ginastera)
Susannah
Fiery Angel
Turandot
Snow Maiden
Barber of Saville
Der Rosenkavalier
Electra
Salome
Oedipus Rex (Stravinsky)
Eugene Onegin

There are a bunch of others.

[The new erato]

Aniara (One of the best sci/fi operas)

What are the others?

[arpeggio]

Although I have never heard it, Tod Machover composed an opera based on the Phillip K. Dick novel Valis.

Two of the others that I am familiar with:

Sallinen: The King Goes Forth To France
Janacek: The Makropoulos Affair is based on a play by Capek (The writer who created the work Robot)

Those are some that I can think of off the top of my head.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Aniara (One of the best sci/fi operas)

So there are more? I am aware that there is a sort of Sci-Fi part in an opera by Philip Glass (The Voyage, I think, but I can't remember which act), but I can't think of any others

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Licht my friend, Licht! 

More experimental theatre than Sci-Fi....I wouldn't be surprised if Stockhausen even believed most of its content as completely factual (didn't he say once that he was from a planet orbiting Sirius and was brought to Earth to save music?)