Your Top 5 Favorite Operas

[Mirror Image]

Fine music in there, for sure, but it is rather long. 

As opposed to Berlioz's Les Troyens (one of your favorite operas) being short? Come on, Karlo.

[Reckoner]

Glass: Akhnaten

[Spineur]

Only 5 !!! So one by composer

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Puccini: Turandot
Verdi: La Traviata
Wagner: Parsifal
Poulenc: le dialogue des carmélites

I cant believe there is no Mozart on this list !!!!

[Mirror Image]

Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle (I'll probably say this is my favourite forever!)

For this, we shall remain friends forever. Seriously, dude, that is my favorite opera from anyone. I'm still in the midst of collecting as many recordings I can find --- I almost own them all except for the ones that never made it to CD and older mono recordings, which I can't listen to without gritting my teeth.

[Florestan]

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!

What´s the situation at the Catholic high school where you teach? 

[Dee Sharp]

For lists this short, I limit it to one per composer.

Bizet: Carmen
Britten: Peter Grimes
Janáček: Jenůfa
Puccini: La bohème
Verdi: Don Carlos

[San Antone]

Only 5 !!! So one by composer

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Puccini: Turandot
Verdi: La Traviata
Wagner: Parsifal
Poulenc: le dialogue des carmélites

I cant believe there is no Mozart on this list !!!!

Nice list.

[Gurn Blanston]

Gluck -   Orfeo et Euridyce (Original Viennese version)
Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro
Mozart - Don Giovanni
Haydn - Armida
Bizet -   Carmen

That was pretty easy, actually. 0:)

[Florestan]

Gluck -   Orfeo et Euridyce (Original Viennese version)
Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro
Mozart - Don Giovanni
Haydn - Armida
Bizet -   Carmen

That was pretty easy, actually. 0:)

A perfect line up, although I´d substitute La fedelta premiata for Armida. 

[Gurn Blanston]

A perfect line up, although I´d substitute La fedelta premiata for Armida. 

Yes, I was torn there. But some of the arias in Armida are downright beautiful. Another fine little opera is the burletta L'Infedeltà Delusa, which is not only highly musical but pretty funny. Well, once again the numeric restriction hurt me...

[ritter]

A perfect line up, although I´d substitute La fedelta premiata for Armida. 

The Haydn one I most enjoy (and the only one I've seen on stage) is La vera Costanza...

"Che burrasca, che tempesta,
che paura, che terrore,
batte ancora in petto il core,
posso appena respirar" 

[Wanderer]

Impossible to list just five. I'm giving you 20, one per composer and in no particular order (runners-up in parentheses):

Beethoven: Fidelio
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde)
R. Strauss: Elektra (Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten)
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
Janáček: Jenůfa (Káťa Kabanová)
Puccini: Tosca (Turandot)
Schreker: Die Gezeichneten
Zemlinsky: Eine florentinische Tragödie (Der Zwerg)
Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle
Szymanowski: Król Roger
Berlioz: Les Troyens
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Korngold: Die tote Stadt (Das Wunder der Heliane)
Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia
Vaughan Williams: The Pilgrim's Progress
Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites
Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann (La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein)
Bizet: Carmen
Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov


Other favourites:

Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
Berg: Wozzeck
Berg: Lulu
Janáček: From the House of the Dead
Janáček: Cunning Little Vixen
Schoenberg: Moses und Aron
Gazzaniga: Don Giovanni
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Puccini: La bohème
R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos
Wagner: Tannhäuser
Busoni: Doktor Faust
Langgaard: Antikrist
Nielsen: Maskarade
Monteverdi: L'Orfeo
Weber: Der Freischütz
Bellini: La sonnambula
Shostakovich: The Nose
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame
Lully: Atys
Boito: Mefistofele
Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana
Verdi: Don Carlos
Verdi: La Traviata
Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci
Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore
Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel
Rachmaninov: The Miserly Knight
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Invisible City of Kitezh
Borodin: Prince Igor
Dukas: Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Chausson: Le roi Arthus
Gounod: Roméo et Juliette
Haydn: Orlando paladino
Vivaldi: Orlando furioso
Vivaldi: Griselda
Rossini: Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra

[Cato]

What´s the situation at the Catholic high school where you teach? 

Well, I am now teaching Latin at a Catholic grade school, but for 25 years I was at an all-boys Catholic high school in northern Ohio.  Operas were an unknown quantity outside of my German classroom!  

To be sure, my experience 50 years ago was undoubtedly anomalous even then.  But I have not stopped introducing my students to music: I have used Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and excerpts from Mozart's Apollo et Hyacinthus in my Latin classes here, along with religious works by Bruckner, Franck, etc.

[Mahlerian]

In chronological order:

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Berg: Wozzeck
Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress

[Spineur]

For the many  of you who chose no italian operas, its like going to france without drinking one glass of wine or to the oktoberfest without having a single beer !

[Sergeant Rock]

For the many  of you who chose no italian operas, its like going to france without drinking one glass of wine or to the oktoberfest without having a single beer !

The problem is the limit of five. If it had been 10, Lucia, Masked Ball, Butterfly, Puritani or Cavalleria Rusticana might have made my cut.

Sarge

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

For the many  of you who chose no italian operas, its like going to france without drinking one glass of wine or to the oktoberfest without having a single beer !

Operas in Italian or operas by Italian composers?

[The new erato]

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

Oh yes I have had the LP set for decades. Though the relatively recent Nagano DVD is superb in its own way.

[Mirror Image]

Very very VERY good to know, because that work means a real lot to me. Without one of my most beloved Masterworks, on my top 10 list (of music in general) without a question!   

After I've heard your suggested Janacek, I'll put that on again!! 

Sounds like a plan!

[springrite]

The problem is that we are only allowed five. But let me try:

Strauss: Elektra
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Berg: Wozzeck
Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde