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Carmen
Carmen () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. Carmen has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon; the "Hab
The Magic Flute
1791 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Aida
Aida (or Aïda, ) is a tragic opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world. At New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariet
La traviata
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
The Marriage of Figaro
opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Madama Butterfly
opera by Giacomo Puccini
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder, and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.
Don Giovanni
opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play ''Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851.
Der Ring des Nibelungen
cycle of four operas by Richard Wagner
Nabucco
Nabucco (; short for Nabucodonosor , i.e. "Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblical books of 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Daniel, and on the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu. However, Antonio Cortese's ballet adaptation of the play (with its necessary simplifications), given at La Scala in 1836, was a more important source for Solera than the play itself. Under its original name of Nabucodonosor, the opera was first performed at
Turandot
thumb|Libretto, 1926 Turandot ( ; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Puccini died in 1924, and his opera was left unfinished. The music was completed by Franco Alfano and premiered on 25 April 1926, almost a year and a half after Puccini's death. The opera is set in China and follows the Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold-hearted Princess Turandot. In order to win her hand in marriage, a suitor must solve three riddles, with a wrong answer resulting in his execution. Calaf passes the test, but Turando
Tristan und Isolde
opera by Richard Wagner
The Barber of Seville
1816 opera by Gioachino Rossini
La bohème
opera by Giacomo Puccini
Il trovatore
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Così fan tutte
Italian-language opera buffa by W. A. Mozart
Fidelio
Fidelio (; ), originally titled '''''''' (Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is the sole opera by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly. The opera premiered at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. The following year, Beethoven's friend Stephan von Breuning rewrote the libretto, shortening the work from three acts to two. After further work on the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, a final version was performed at the Kärntnertortheater on 23 May 1814. As these
Cavalleria rusticana
opera by Pietro Mascagni
Pagliacci
Pagliacci (; literal translation, 'Clowns') is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who murders his wife Nedda and her lover Silvio on stage during a performance. Canio portrays on stage the character of Pagliaccio (Pierrot), while Nedda portays Pierrot's unfaithful lover Columbina.
Parsifal
Parsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.
Otello
Otello () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887.
Eugene Onegin
opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Threepenny Opera
1928 musical play by Bertolt Brecht; adapted from John Gay's 18th-century ballad opera The Beggar's Opera with music by Kurt Weill and insertion ballads by François Villon and Rudyard Kipling
Lohengrin
opera by Richard Wagner
Don Carlos
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Un ballo in maschera
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
La forza del destino
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Falstaff
1893 opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Der Freischütz
German opera by Carl Maria von Weber
The Flying Dutchman
opera by Richard Wagner
Die Walküre
music drama by Richard Wagner, part of Der Ring des Nibelungen
Das Rheingold
1869 opera by Richard Wagner
Manon Lescaut
opera by Giacomo Puccini
Tannhäuser
1845 opera by Richard Wagner
Lucia di Lammermoor
opera by Gaetano Donizetti
Faust
grand opera in five acts by Charles Gounod
Norma
opera by Vincenzo Bellini
The Queen of Spades
opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Götterdämmerung
''''' (; Twilight of the Gods'''''), WWV 86D, is the last of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It received its premiere at the on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the whole work.
L'elisir d'amore
opera by Gaetano Donizetti
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Die Fledermaus
comic operetta in three acts by Johann Strauss II
Siegfried
opera by Richard Wagner
The Tales of Hoffmann
opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach
Salome
opera by Richard Strauss
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
opera by Richard Wagner
Simon Boccanegra
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Orfeo ed Euridice
opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck
Macbeth
opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Der Rosenkavalier
comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss
The Bartered Bride
comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana
Gianni Schicchi
comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini
L'Orfeo
'''''L'Orfeo (SV 318) (), or La favola d'Orfeo''' , is a late Renaissance/early Baroque favola in musica'', or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua. While Jacopo Peri's Dafne is generally recognised as the first work in the opera genre, and the earliest surviving opera is Peri's Euridice, ''L'Orfeo'' is the e
William Tell
opera by Gioacchino Rossini
Idomeneo
'''' (Italian for Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante; usually referred to simply as Idomeneo, K. 366) is an Italian-language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, based on a 1705 play by Crébillion père, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée'' in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it may have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theat
The Merry Widow
operetta composed by Franz Lehár, libretto by Viktor Léon and Leo Stein
La Fille du régiment
opéra-comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti
Ernani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the 1830 play Hernani by Victor Hugo.
Don Pasquale
opera by Gaetano Donizetti