Ten favourite operas

[rauschwerk]

Unless you live in the sticks, where opera is just not available, then you put on a cd or a dvd, which, probably, is why opera is only for the elite?

Opera in cinemas has brought the experience within the reach of many more people, and with HD picture and high quality sound it can be thrilling. Cost? around £20/seat. See http://cinema.opusarte.com/ and http://www.metoperafamily.org/metope...s.aspx?id=3313.

My favourite operas (seen live, in the cinema or on DVD) are:-

Berlioz: The Trojans (unforgettable experiences singing concert performances with Sir Colin Davis in the 1960s)
Mozart: Figaro
Britten: Peter Grimes
Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
Beethoven : Fidelio (not sure how much the staging adds, but the music is wonderful)
Berg: Wozzeck
Bizet: Carmen
Ravel: L'Enfant et les Sortileges (there's an excellent DVD of a ballet danced to the soundtrack of the score)

Not quite 10, but I have Don Giovanni, Cosi, Traviata, Otello, Rigoletto, Tosca, Turn of the Screw on my Lovefilm list. Trovatore is being relayed from the Met to a cinema near me later this month so I hope to see that also.

[3rd Viennese School]

Watching opera on television is alright I suppose. I agree it does need that visual element. Just hearing it sounds like a load of screeching and more screeching.

3VS

[Don Basilio]

I agree it does need that visual element. Just hearing it sounds like a load of screeching and more screeching.

Nooo!

I got a DVD of La gazza ladra (The Theiving Magpie) for myself for my birthday. From the Pesaro Rossini Festival, with Lu Jen conducting, Mariola Canterero as Ninetta and Michele Pedrtusi as the Podesta. It's wonderful. Definitely in my list.

[makropulos]

This has to be. I'll post my quirky ten favourites later, but in the meantime, feel free.

This is incredibly difficult - but here are 10 *of* my favourite operas.

Mozart: Figaro
Verdi: Il Trovatore
Wagner: Die Meistersinger
Sullivan: Yeomen of the Guard
Rimsky-Korsakov: Christmas Eve
Puccini: La Bohème
Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos
Janacek: The Cunning Little Vixen
Janacek: From the House of the Dead
Britten: Billy Budd

[Thespian]

In no particular order and will probably change

Peter Grimes - Britten
Lucia di Lammermoor - Donizetti
La Fille de Regiment - Donizetti
Marriage of Figaro - Mozart
Barber of Seville - Rossini
Carmen - Bizet
The Ring cycle(does that count as 1 or 4) - Wagner
I Puritani - Bellini
La Boheme - Puccini
Madame Butterfly - Puccini

[Bax-of-Delights]

OK -

DEBUSSY: Pelleas and Melisande (the Glyndebourne production was probably the most magical evening I have ever spent at any opera house)
BRITTEN: Peter Grimes
JANACEK: The Makropolus Affair
PUCCINI: Tosca
PUCCINI: La Boheme
PUCCINI: Turandot
ALWYN: Miss Julie (never likely to see this but...)
SCHOENBERG: Moses und Aaron
STRAUSS: Der Rosenkavalier
STRAUSS: Salome (but the two productions I have seen - both at ENO - were desperately tame)

[antongould]

Britten
Billy Budd
Peter Grimes
Albert Herring

Adams
Nixon in China

Mozart
Cosi fan tutte
Marriage of Figaro

Beethoven
Fidelio

Berg
Wozzeck

Tchaikovsky
Eugene Onegin

Gershwin
Porgy and Bess

[WilliamEdward]

terrible lips by whitley

[french frank]

'Evening, WilliamEdward

terrible lips by whitley

Doesn't happen to be on anywhere shortly, does it, by any outside chance

[ahinton]

In no particular order:

Salome
Elektra
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Wozzeck
Tristan und Isolde
Der Ring des Nibelungen (if it's not cheating to count that as one!)
A Midsummer Marriage
Doktor Faust
Turandot (either of them - now that IS cheating, I suppose!)
Die Soldaten.

[Roslynmuse]

Tough!

Today's choice would be:

Ravel: L'enfant et les sortileges
Berlioz: Les troyennes
Dukas: Barbe-bleu et Ariane
Wagner: Parsifal
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Wagner: Ring cycle (and if only one it would have to be Gotterdammerung)
Berg: Wozzeck
Berg: Lulu
Sullivan: Ruddigore
Poulenc: Les mamelles de Tiresias

Gosh, is it 10 already?! I didn't manage to squeeze in any Debussy, Gounod, Bizet, Tippett, Britten, Chabrier, the other Ravel, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Faure, Chausson, the other Poulencs, Janacek.....

[arcades]

Monteverdi, L'Orfeo
Rameau, Zoroastre
Mozart, Don Giovanni
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde
Wagner, Parsifal
Janáček , Věc Makropulos
Berg, Wozzeck
Nono, Prometeo
Holliger, Schneewittchen
Sciarrino, Lohengrin

cheating horribly also Cavalli, Artemisia; Rameau, Les Boréades; Mozart, Idomeneo; Mozart, Così fan tutte; Beethoven, Fidelio; Verdi, Otello; Mussorgsky, Boris Godunov; Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande; Janáček, Káťa Kabanová; Lachenmann, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern.

[Colonel Danby]

In no particular order:

Britten: Peter Grimes
Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage
Birtwistle: Gawain
Puccini: Tosca
Mozart: Cosi fan tute
Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande
Wagner: Walküre
John Adams: Nixon in China
Berlioz: Trojans
William Alwyn: Miss Julie

There, that's for starters: there will obviously be more to come!

[gurnemanz]

Wagner - Parsifal (I'm in it, after all)
Wagner - Tristan und Isolde
Wagner - Die Walküre
Mozart - Don Giovanni
Janacek - Jenufa
Berg - Wozzeck
Weill - Die Dreigroschenoper
Verdi - Don Carlos
Rimsky-Korsakov - The Tsar's Bride
Strauss R - Salome

[Colonel Danby]

Bax of Delights, great minds think alike: when nominating Alwyn's marvellous opera 'Miss Julie' for my desert island I hadn't scrolled through the other candidates suggested by posters, and it was a joy that the Ibsen setting was also the choice of a like minded chap. I've never seen it live (and never will) but it's wonderful music, and the recording with Gomez/Luxon/Tausky on Lyrita is often played.

The other nine I have seen live at CovG and elsewhere: I didn't see 'Pelleas' at Glyndebourne unfortunately as tickets were like gold-dust, but I did catch it in Birmingham with the WNO conducted by Boulez: Alison Hagley was predictably divine.