3280 shows
Clear filtersA wrecked flight crew confronts whether people help one another and whether the fallen can accept their non-existence. Through investigations, a council, examination and final consent, the work questions complicity with power and violence; its original multimedia performance combined music, choral passages, clown scenes and film.
Baby Doe and Horace Tabor fall in love while Horace is married to Augusta; after he divorces Augusta, the couple marry amid social scandal. Horace’s fortunes decline as Colorado politics shift toward the gold standard, and he dies after a final visit to the opera house he built. Thirty years later, Baby Doe ends the story at the Matchless Mine.
A love story set during the Ming dynasty that celebrates the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, combining Chinese folk music with Western opera styles.
Count Almaviva, in disguise as the poor student Lindoro, falls in love with Rosina, who is confined by her guardian Bartolo. With Figaro’s help, Almaviva repeatedly disguises himself to enter Bartolo’s house and reach Rosina. After Bartolo convinces Rosina that Lindoro has betrayed her, she agrees to marry Bartolo; Almaviva reveals his identity, and the pair marry before Bartolo can stop them.
Cecil loves the Dutch soldier Franzel, but her father wants her to marry Captain Hogrestan, while Franzel’s father wants him to marry an heiress. The Baron locks Cecil in a chamber, but she escapes using the family portraits. After Cecil and Franzel marry, both fathers reject the match.
At a village fair, Mařenka and Jeník declare their love, though her parents want her to marry Vašek, the son of a wealthy landowner. The marriage broker Kecal offers Jeník money to give Mařenka up. Jeník appears to agree, but stipulates that she may marry only a son of Mícha. Meanwhile, Mařenka meets Vašek in disguise and persuades him to give up the marriage. When she learns about Jeník’s contract, she believes he has betrayed her and agrees to marry Vašek. Jeník is then revealed as Mícha’s elder son, fulfilling the contract. Mařenka understands his scheme and they marry; Vašek’s antics in a bear costume convince his parents he is not ready for marriage.
In Thebes, Pentheus tries to suppress the cult of Dionysus, whose followers embrace ecstatic revelry. A stranger—Dionysus in disguise—draws the city into the cult and entrances Pentheus, who goes to the mountain dressed as a woman. Dionysus’s spell reaches Pentheus’s mother Agave and sister Autonoë; Pentheus is torn apart, and Agave unknowingly cradles his head as the city falls.
Widow Popova insists she remains faithful to her late husband, while her servant Luka doubts her grief. When creditor Smirnov arrives to collect a debt, their quarrel escalates until they aim pistols at one another; instead, they fall in love, leaving Luka astonished.
Laine, a poor weaver’s ugly and crippled daughter, wishes to be beautiful. The Devil gives her a stone that grants beauty, and Prince Philip falls for her appearance. She renounces the stone, which passes from her father Simon to Saida; while Laine returns to her former form, Philip loses his sight in battle and recognizes her inner beauty. Saida discards the stone, and Philip chooses Laine.
Peachum and his wife discover that their daughter Polly has secretly married Macheath, the highwayman who is one of Peachum’s clients. They arrange to have Macheath captured and killed for his money. Macheath is imprisoned, escapes with Lucy Lockit’s help, and is recaptured. Four other women also claim to be his wives. He prepares to hang, but the Beggar changes the ending to satisfy the audience’s demand for a happy conclusion, and Macheath is reprieved and reunited with Polly.
Village girl Poluška, engaged to Tonek, flirts with Baron Adolf. When the gamekeeper exposes them, her parents try to arrange a match with the baron’s family, but the plan fails. Poluška returns to Tonek, while Adolf finds happiness with a countess; the characters reflect on the folly of mismatched social unions.
A chamber opera about Bannadonna, a bell-caster and architect, his daughter Una, and the workers around them. Krenek develops the mysterious events of Melville’s story into explicit dramatic action.
The unfinished opera was conceived around a team of Soviet specialists visiting America. Shostakovich wrote an overture and eight further pieces, lasting about 17 minutes.
The opening music drama of Boughton’s Arthurian cycle concerns the begetting of Arthur, with a libretto by Reginald Buckley that Boughton heavily revised.
Petra von Kant’s destructive lesbian affair is recounted in this five-act opera based on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s screenplay. The opera first appeared in concert in Dublin before its staged London premiere.
The opera interweaves a medieval village legend with a modern story about excavations at King Casimir IV's tomb. In the legend, Christina agrees to marry a Green Man to spare villagers from an oppressive count, then breaks the bargain to marry Carl. A spider emerges from her hand and spreads plague; Christina traps it in her cousin's guitar and buries it in Casimir's tomb. In the modern story, a spider emerges when archaeologists open the tomb, and a deadly virus begins to affect them.
At a country inn, widow Mrs Waters rejects retired boatswain Harry Benn’s proposals. Benn persuades a down-on-his-luck ex-soldier to stage a burglary so he can rescue her, but Mrs Waters discovers the scheme and turns it around; the ruse ends with Benn giving himself up and Mrs Waters warming to the accomplice.
The fugitive Thaddeus joins a band of gypsies and saves the infant Arline, daughter of Count Arnheim, from a deer. Twelve years later, Arline is arrested after the Gypsy Queen frames her for theft, but Arnheim recognizes her by her scar. Thaddeus wins the Count’s blessing to marry her; the jealous Queen dies in a struggle with Devilshoof.
Chinese-American ghostwriter Ruth struggles with her elderly mother LuLing’s apparent dementia, her husband’s uncertain commitment, and her teenage stepdaughters’ behavior. Guided by a ghost of uncertain identity, Ruth travels into the past and experiences parts of LuLing’s tragic youth, gaining insight, forgiveness, and strength. The story moves between San Francisco in 1997 and China and Hong Kong around World War II.
The opera adapts Tom Wolfe’s novel and centers on ambitions and tensions among New York City’s upper classes in the 1980s. The entry does not summarize its dramatic events.
A one-act opera based on Anton Chekhov’s comic play The Bear, also known as The Boor. Its libretto uses Vladimir Ussachevsky’s English translation.
A one-act English-language opera for young people by Gian Carlo Menotti, with music and libretto by the composer.
During the Brandenburg occupation of Bohemia, Prague’s mayor Volfram suffers the plundering of the city and the detention of his daughters by the occupying troops. His daughter Ludiše rejects Jan Tausendmark, who joins the occupiers. The serf Jíra is accused of leading a revolt and condemned to death, but Junoš rescues him. Tausendmark fails to secure Ludiše, and the Brandenburgers are driven from Prague as the city is liberated.
Donald Tovey’s only opera draws on the legends of Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur.
Sibelius’s planned Finnish-language opera follows the wizard Väinämöinen as he tries to win the moon goddess Kuutar by creating a boat through song and magic. When his incantation lacks three words, he journeys to the underworld of Tuonela to find them. Sibelius abandoned the project before completion, later reusing some of its material in other works.
Nebuchadnezzar orders Ananias, Misael, and Asarias to worship his golden image. They refuse and are thrown into a fiery furnace. God saves them from death, and the voice of an angel joins the three Israelites in a Benedicite.
A magician entertains a caliph by conjuring a pleasure-seeking replica named Suh, who neglects his responsibilities and is eventually killed by the evil spirit Sah in serpent form. When the caliph grows angry and tries to destroy the magician’s amphora, the magician summons a storm and escapes.
The Wife of Bath loves Chaucer, who loves the Prioress. The Wife wins a bet for a brooch that carries Chaucer’s promise of marriage, but King Richard II allows her to marry again only if she chooses a miller; Chaucer and the Prioress are reconciled.
Alexander Knaifel’s three-act chamber opera adapts Oscar Wilde’s story of a ghost at Canterville.
Gordon Getty’s one-act opera adapts Oscar Wilde’s 1887 short story The Canterville Ghost.
A one-act chamber opera based on Mark Twain’s satirical short story The Legend of the Capitoline Venus.
Petr Grinev leaves home for military service and falls in love with Masha, daughter of the commandant at Belogorsky Fortress. During a snowstorm, Petr gives his coat to a guide who is later revealed to be Pugachev, leader of an uprising. When Pugachev’s forces take the fortress, he spares Petr but executes the commandant and takes his wife. Pugachev frees Masha from Shvabrin and allows the couple to leave. After Petr is arrested, Masha petitions the Empress, who pardons him and blesses their future together.
A one-act comic opera based on Nikolai Gogol’s story of the same name. Its cast includes a general, landowner Chertokutsky and his young wife, several officers, a soldier, a footman, and a groom.
The opera interweaves the story of Abraham as told in religious texts with recorded interviews of Israeli, Palestinian, and American participants reflecting on Abraham and his family. Spoken interview material is shaped into musical phrases, while images of interviewees are shown on video screens.
An eight-scene opera based on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s play The Cenci.
The opera follows five teenagers who were convicted in the Central Park jogger case, served years in prison, and were later exonerated. Its cast includes the teenagers and their parents, the actual perpetrator Matias Reyes, a prosecutor, a detective figure called the Masque, and Donald Trump, who had publicly called for the death penalty.
The Ladrones force English tourist Peter Grigg to become their chief and marry Inez, though he is already married. Later, his wife Dolly arrives, and the band helps him conceal the marriage while the missing original chief, Ferdinand, is discovered and happily resumes his position.
A family sheltering refugees during wartime is torn apart when soldiers enter their home. The mother and child flee by ship but are denied a safe landing; the island’s governor allows the child ashore, yet the child refuses to leave the mother and chooses death rather than separation. In the final, dreamlike scene, the dead children await a Messiah who proves to be an ordinary traveling salesman.
Scientist Alex Rosenthal, who fled Nazi Germany for the USSR, clones Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Verdi, and Mozart. After government support ends, the clones live in 1993 Moscow. Mozart falls in love with Tanya, and they marry. Kela poisons the group; Mozart survives and is left alone.
Dexter and Athena live in a ramshackle house in inner-suburban Melbourne with their disabled son Billy. Their family life is disrupted by the arrival of Phillip, Elizabeth, and Vicki, a more urbane, musical, and stylish family, bringing collateral damage in its wake.
A Chinese-language western-style opera based on the story The Orphan of Zhao.
Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven observe from heaven that classical music seems to be declining in relevance. They descend to Earth to visit Charles Rosen and interrupt a symposium on sonata form, where a doctoral student disrupts a performance of Don Giovanni with extended analysis. The composers meet anthropomorphized musical chords and eventually speak with Rosen, who tells them that relevance changes. They return to heaven, and Robert Schumann then visits Rosen.
A one-act Russian comic opera in 15 scenes and ten musical numbers, written for a planned visit by Catherine the Great to Tambov. It draws on Russian folk-song traditions. The entry does not explain the plot.
An English-language stage adaptation of Blaise le savetier, with new text and music by Charles Dibdin.
A traveller recounts how General K'an falsely accused the official Chao Tun, who fled with his wife and newborn son. Raised by a hermit, the son goes to the capital twenty years later to study and discovers the truth about his father's death. He deciphers a scroll revealing K'an's plot against the Emperor, warns the Emperor, and recovers his father's property.
In an unnamed European totalitarian country, political dissident John Sorel is hunted by the secret police. His wife Magda seeks a visa to flee with their child and his mother, but the consulate’s paperwork and queues delay her. The secret police question Magda, and a wealthy woman receives a visa ahead of her. Magda’s child and mother-in-law die; John is captured when he returns to the consulate. Despondent, Magda turns on the gas in her oven as the secretary tries to reach her by telephone.
A band of Spanish brigands must choose a new chief, and a law makes the first passing foreigner their leader and Inez’s husband. They force English tourist Adolphus Grigg into the role and scheme to have him killed, but he helps protect captive Rita until her fiancé Vasquez arrives; the band is pardoned and Rita is freed.
A 75-minute, seven-part opera based on Mike Corley’s experiences and theories posted on Usenet. The work portrays a paranoid mind and concerns surveillance; its vocal parts are spoken over continuous music.
Orpheus leads Eurydice out of the underworld under Hades’s condition that he not look back at her. Near the end of the corridor, he turns to make sure she is following, condemning her to return to the underworld. In a series of arias, Eurydice retreats down the corridor while Orpheus is left to return alone to the living world.
In Warsaw, the young nobleman Kazimierz loves the Countess, while Bronia, who is also in love with him, feels out of place among the Countess's salon guests. After a ball and a misunderstanding send Kazimierz away to war, the Countess recognizes his sincerity and seeks him out, but Kazimierz chooses Bronia, and they are joined at her grandfather's country manor.
An opera adaptation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Critic, using much of its second and third acts. The opera’s plot is not summarized in the entry.
In Salem during the witch trials, Abigail Williams and other girls accuse townspeople of witchcraft. Abigail’s jealousy of Elizabeth Proctor drives her accusation against Elizabeth, and John Proctor is also condemned. He chooses hanging rather than recanting his beliefs.
A forester captures a young vixen, who later escapes and lives in the forest with a fox. After a poacher kills her, the forester encounters a young frog, continuing the opera’s cycle of life and renewal.
In a village, Bětuška loves the poor Jeník, but her father Martin wants her to marry the wealthy Václav. The Prince offers Jeník a farm in exchange for an assignation with Bětuška; Veruna and the Princess foil the Prince and Jean with disguises and a trap, and the Prince grants the farm so Bětuška and Jeník can marry.
Miranda’s aunt wants her to marry her foppish cousin, Monsieur, but Miranda loves Gerard. When Miranda’s father discovers Gerard in her bedroom, Gerard pretends to be a dancing master. The aunt tests his dancing and Miranda’s maid tries to seduce Monsieur. Miranda and Gerard secretly marry, and her father approves.
Set in eighteenth-century France, the opera follows characters including Marquise de Merteuil, Vicomte de Valmont, Madame de Tourvel, Cécile de Volanges, and Chevalier de Danceny across scenes in chateaus, bedrooms, a wood, a pleasure pavilion, a convent, and Vincennes.
A Russian-language opera based on Boris Vasilyev’s novel The Dawns Here Are Quiet.
After choruses reflect on Palestinian and Jewish histories, the ship’s Captain recounts the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. Passengers and hijackers describe their experiences and motives. Leon Klinghoffer condemns the hijackers and is murdered offstage. After the hijackers surrender and the passengers disembark, the Captain tells Marilyn Klinghoffer of her husband’s death; she responds with grief and anger.
An opera by Otakar Ostrčil based on Karel Pippich’s drama about Vlasta, a leader of warriors in the Czech Maidens’ War legend. The plot is not summarized in the available record.
Against the 1825 Decembrist revolt, Prince Dimitri joins dissident officers while pursuing a love for Elena. The conspirators’ uprising in Senate Square is crushed, and Dimitri is wounded. Elena persuades Tsar Nicholas to let her accompany Dimitri into exile; other leaders face execution, and the exiles depart for Siberia singing a hymn to liberation.
In Surinam/Dutch Guiana, the local Anakawtas tribe, led by Queen Oanita and Casgan, attacks Dutch settlers defended by Captain Maurice and Major Van Pumpernickle. Oanita and Maurice fall in love, provoking Casgan. Casgan interrupts their meeting and captures Maurice, who refuses to betray his comrades. Oanita lets him escape, then faces execution by her enraged tribe. Maurice and his soldiers rescue her; Casgan is killed, and the lovers’ reunion restores peace between the settlers and the tribe.
In 15th-century London, a husband lives with a wife who has been unable to speak since birth. A surgeon gives her the ability to speak, but she becomes domineering. Exasperated, her husband calls for the Devil to take her. When the Devil arrives, he too cannot tolerate the wife, and he escapes with the husband.
New Hampshire farmer Jabez Stone sells his soul to Mr. Scratch in exchange for prosperity. When the devil comes to collect, Daniel Webster defends Stone in a trial before a jury of historical figures chosen by Scratch, and wins a not-guilty verdict.
At a village dance, Kate declares she would dance with the devil if necessary. A mysterious hunter, the devil Marbuel, dances with her and carries her to Hell. Jirka follows to rescue her and persuades Lucifer to let Kate return to Earth. Later, Jirka tells the Princess she must free the serfs or be taken to Hell. When Marbuel comes for her, Kate frightens him away. The Princess rewards Jirka and Kate, and the peasants celebrate their freedom.
The devil becomes fascinated with the young Alvare and appears in several forms, including Biondetta. As the supernatural figure grows more human, Biondetta is ultimately freed through her love for Alvare.
Jarek has sworn not to marry until his lord Vok does, while Vok has been unable to love since a past rejection. The demon Rarach exploits their hopes and the lovers’ oaths, but after Vok recognizes his former beloved’s daughter Hedvika and opens his heart to her, Rarach tries to flood the monastery by building a wall across the Vltava. Beneš breaks the demon’s power, and Vok and Hedvika as well as Jarek and Katuška can marry.
In Loudun, the prioress Jeanne’s visions and the nuns’ claims of possession are used to accuse Father Grandier of witchcraft. Grandier’s political conflict with authorities and private relationships fuel his prosecution; he is tortured and burned, and Jeanne eventually recognizes that her accusations arose from unrequited love.
Anne Frank records daily life in hiding with her family in Amsterdam from 1942 until their arrest in 1944. Through brief scenes drawn from her diary, she describes the people around her, small pleasures, her growing feelings for Peter, and the fear and loneliness of confinement.
In five continuous diary scenes set in St. Petersburg, clerk Popristchin becomes increasingly delusional: he imagines dogs are corresponding about his beloved Sophie, then believes himself to be King Ferdinand VIII of Spain, before ending in an asylum.
A group of humorists fools several dupes with a fabricated story about Blackbeard’s buried treasure. They stage a mock magical ritual and persuade the dupes to dig up a chest, which contains only bricks and stones. After Washball tries to betray the group to the king’s tax collector, the dupes confront their gullibility; Lucy and Meanwell marry, and the others resolve to reform.
The opera explores the seven virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope and charity—and cultural perceptions of disability.
Wealthy couple Iris and Jed are happily divorcing and host an elaborate party. Iris's sister Louise is secretly in love with Jed, while Toby is an aspiring artist hired as a waiter and Caroline, the couple's assistant, is pursued by loan sharks. By the end of the evening, the divorce has unsettled the characters' assumptions and sent them in unexpected directions.
In a totalitarian future, the Doctor tells a child the legend of a shepherd whose wife returned to a lake after he struck her three times, leaving healing powers to his descendants. A spreading disease afflicts anyone struck in the rain. The Doctor warns the Ruler, who suppresses the story; during a confrontation in the rain, the Doctor strikes and infects him. The Ruler seeks a cure at the lake, but the Doctor refuses. The sick crowd tramples the Doctor to death, and the Child orders the Ruler into the lake before becoming the new Doctor of Myddfai.
In Uppsala in 1647, professor Johan Bure and apothecary Simon Wolimhaus wager on when the world will end, putting innkeeper Klas Mugg’s home at risk. Klas’s daughter Elin loves the poor student Lars, who is arrested after confronting noble students. Captain Lennart Sporre persuades Klas to consent to their marriage and secretly sets fire to Wolimhaus’s kennel, invalidating the wager. Amid the ensuing confusion Lars escapes, and the arrival of Queen Kristina is mistaken for Doomsday. Lars is pardoned and marries Elin, while Sporre is united with Görvel; the prophets are confounded.
This three-act operetta has a satiric story concerning reincarnation and is based on the play The Road to Yesterday.
In 1848 Sonoma, residents carry conflicting memories and hopes as a troupe prepares Othello. Sam, an African American man, is initially denied entry to the performance; the incident sparks a confrontation with General Vallejo, followed by an apology and a communal reflection on the town’s dreams.
A German comic opera based on a play by Aristophanes. The available record does not identify the specific source play or provide a plot synopsis.
Laundress Catherine helps young Napoleon and shelters aristocrat Philippe during the French Revolution, while her fiancé Lefebvre advances in the army. Fifteen years later, Napoleon orders the Duchess of Dantzic to divorce Marshal Lefebvre, but her old unpaid laundry bill reminds him of her kindness; he relents and permits their adopted son Adhémar to marry Renée.
The widowed Duchess secretly marries her steward Antonio despite her brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal forbidding her to remarry. They discover the marriage and imprison her. Their spy Bosola and Ferdinand ultimately kill each other in a duel.
In Seville, Don Ferdinand loves Donna Clara, whose father plans to send her to a convent. When Ferdinand asks her to elope, she refuses but later runs away alone. Ferdinand's sister Louisa loves Antonio, while their father Don Jerome intends her to marry the wealthy Isaac Mendoza.
Don Jerome plans to marry his daughter Luisa to Don Isaac, separating her from Don Antonio. Luisa trades clothes with her duenna so she can search for her lover, while the duenna pursues Isaac. Luisa finds Ferdinand’s runaway beloved Clara and persuades Isaac to bring Antonio to her. By the end, both couples marry and Don Jerome learns how he was deceived.
The roles include Channon, Leah, the Messenger, Rabbi Azrael, Meyer, Sender, Chennoch and Frade.
A three-act Yiddish-language opera adapted from S. Ansky’s play The Dybbuk.
The opera dramatizes the conception and construction of the Sydney Opera House. Construction begins before key architectural problems are resolved; after a change of government, political opposition and disputes over cost and schedule lead to the architect losing control and leaving the country. Two young artists see their future in the building, whose realized form stands alongside the unfulfilled larger vision.
Two-act opera featuring Boris Pasternak as narrator, based on his semi-autobiographical works The Last Summer and Spectorsky.
Irish patriot Terence O’Brian returns to a village whose people have been forced to adopt English customs. Professor Bunn, hired by the English to teach elocution, switches sides and helps the rebels frighten away soldiers by staging a fairy haunting. After a second ruse and several romantic complications, Bunn persuades the Lord Lieutenant to pardon the rebels, and the couples are united.
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter and escaped convict, has made himself a wealthy, brutal ruler of a West Indian island. As a revolt drives him into the jungle, visions of his past and a man he murdered overwhelm him; surrounded by pursuers, Jones kills himself with the silver bullet he had worn as protection.
An opera pasticcio combining Baroque music by several composers with a new text by Jeremy Sams. It brings together characters from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, including Prospero, Miranda, Ariel, Helena, Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander.
Flora, one of King Hildebrand’s three daughters, is fated to marry a pig who is actually a king under a spell. After a witch abducts him to marry her daughter, Flora enlists the North Wind, Moon, and Sun to find and free him, restoring him to human form.
Shchedrin's Russian-language concert opera is based on Nikolai Leskov's novel The Enchanted Wanderer. It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for Lorin Maazel and later received its Russian premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre.
Innkeeper Nastasya, known as Kuma, is pursued by Prince Nikita and his son Yuriy. The devious Mamïrov spreads rumors about her and schemes against her and the prince’s family. Yuriy falls in love with Nastasya, and they plan to flee, unaware that Mamïrov has devised a plot with devastating consequences.
Regent Miloch and Minister of War Ozir scheme to remove Prince Ivan by persuading him to marry the opera singer Vivien Savary, a commoner, which would require him to abdicate. Vivien falls in love with Ivan and, with the secret-service chief Troute, helps thwart the scheme. The plotters are exposed, and Vivien is revealed to have royal ancestry, allowing her to marry Ivan without the crown being lost.
In wartime and postwar London, Sarah promises to end her affair with Maurice if he survives a bombing. When he does, she turns to religion, while Maurice resents her conversion and later hires a detective to investigate her after she returns to her husband, Henry.
In 1890s London, a society of bourgeois cats protects rats and raises the orphan mouse Louise. Lord Puff, his wife Minette, and Minette’s lover Tom are caught in a love triangle.
During a pogrom, a Jewish congregation hides overnight in a synagogue while the rabbi reads from the Torah. Each act re-enacts a biblical theme. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the deportation of the people hiding in the synagogue converge, while a messianic voice offers hope of deliverance in Zion.
A one-act, seven-scene chamber opera about Arthur Stace, who chalked the word “Eternity” on Sydney walls and footpaths about 500,000 times over more than 35 years.
Prague landlord Matěj Brouček, drunk after an evening at a tavern, dreams of a more comfortable life on the Moon. He encounters avant-garde lunar artists, whose art and flower-scented meal displease him; after he is caught eating sausage, he flees on Pegasus and wakes in a barrel. In a second excursion, Brouček travels to Prague in 1420 during a Hussite siege. He convinces the rebels he is on their side but flees battle, is accused of treason, and sentenced to be burned in a beer barrel. He wakes back in his own time and boasts that he liberated Prague.
After a dinner party at the de Nobile mansion, the guests find themselves unable to leave. As hunger, thirst, illness, and conflict escalate, they debate sacrificing Edmundo. Leticia realizes they are trapped repeating the positions and actions of their arrival; changing one action lets the guests cross the threshold and reunite with the crowd outside.
At the Sorochyntsi fair, the peasant Gritsko wins the approval of Parasya’s father, Cherevik, to marry her, but her stepmother Khivrya blocks the match. A story about the devil searching for a red jacket spreads fear among the fairgoers, while Khivrya secretly entertains the priest’s son. With help from a Gypsy, Gritsko secures Cherevik’s renewed consent, and the people celebrate the wedding. Shebalin’s standard completion includes Gritsko’s dream of witches and devils.
During the celebration of Oberon’s birthday, Phoebus and the Four Seasons appear in a masque. Juno blesses the lovers, a lament is sung, and Chinese characters celebrate harmony before Hymen praises married life.
The opera adapts Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher.
Chris Judge Smith’s opera adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story makes the House itself a vocal character sung by Roderick Usher. Poe’s unnamed narrator becomes Montresor, and the libretto hints at a romantic attachment between him and Madeline Usher.
Framed as a rehearsal, the work opens with Mr. Meanwell, Mr. Ballad and Mr. Modely arguing over English and Italian opera for a wedding, then calling in the players to begin Mr. Drama’s piece. The play mixes dialogue with ballad airs set to familiar tunes, turning to debates over taste and fashionable intrigues. In Act III, Sir Peevish Terrible convenes a mock court to try Harlequin before the company continues with songs and a concluding ensemble. The satire targets English drama, theatrical management and the vogue for Italian opera.
Renata tells the knight Ruprecht that she loved the angel Madiel as a child and later mistook Count Heinrich von Otterheim for the angel returned in human form. After Heinrich leaves her, she asks Ruprecht to help find him. Renata and Ruprecht seek magical aid, but Agrippa refuses to help. When Renata finds Heinrich and learns he never was her angel, she asks Ruprecht to avenge her; he is wounded in a duel. Later Renata decides to enter a convent. The nuns accuse her of demonic possession, and the Inquisitor condemns her to be burned.
In modern Lewes, Cora’s visit to the site of a former naval prison conjures Matts Olander, a Finnish prisoner held there during the Crimean War. Past and present overlap as Cora dates John, who longs for her great-grandmother Lily, while Lily loves Matts; the story explores love across time, language and distance.
Lila, a young girl, wants to become a firework-maker like her father and goes on adventures.
Emperor Qin orders the conquest of Yan so his childhood friend, musician Gao Jianli, can compose an anthem for the new empire. Jianli refuses after Qin’s army destroys his village, but agrees to write music after falling in love with Princess Yueyang. At the imperial inauguration, the dead princess and general reveal Qin’s crimes; Jianli, grieving and vengeful, presents the slaves’ song as the anthem.
In 1919, Shoeless Joe Jackson reluctantly joins a conspiracy to throw the World Series after his teammates frame it as a way to challenge miserly owner Charles Comiskey. Joe has second thoughts and urges the others to play to win, but gamblers threaten his wife Katie, and Lefty Williams agrees to lose the next game. A year later, rumors haunt the team. Joe confesses to Katie, who persuades him to tell the truth. The scandal breaks; the players are acquitted at trial but Commissioner Landis bans them for life. Years later, former catcher Ray Schalk tells reporter Ring Lardner that Joe manages a small store in South Carolina. In a flashback, Joe, aged and ashamed, avoids acknowledging his old teammate.
A chamber opera by Jason Kao Hwang with a libretto by Catherine Filloux.
During Japanese rule in Korea, Kkot-bun sells flowers to buy medicine for her sick mother and care for her blinded younger sister. After the landlord’s wife has the sister taken away and Kkot-bun is imprisoned, her brother returns from the revolutionary army and leads villagers in an uprising against the landlord.
Princess Laya returns to Hawaii disguised as a singer and finds the island under American rule, while her royalist supporters hope she will lead a resistance. When the governor orders her arrested, Captain Stone refuses and she signs away her claim to sovereignty to save him; after misunderstandings and a near suicide, the characters reunite in Monte Carlo, where Laya and Prince Lilo-Taro are brought together.
A two-act English-language opera adapted loosely from David Cronenberg’s 1986 science-fiction film, with roles for scientist Seth Brundle, journalist Veronica Quaife, editor Stathis Borans, and others.
A storm drives Norwegian captain Daland ashore, where he meets the cursed Flying Dutchman, condemned to sail until a faithful woman redeems him. Daland agrees to the Dutchman’s marriage to his daughter Senta in exchange for treasure. Senta, who has long been fascinated by the Dutchman’s story, pledges fidelity. When the Dutchman believes her former lover Erik has won her back, he departs; Senta throws herself into the sea and her sacrifice frees him.
A comic chamber opera built from Melvyn Bragg’s interview with artist Francis Bacon, filmed in 1985. The work features two speaking characters.
A Russian-language opera based on Ethel Voynich’s novel and set in Italy from 1834 to 1848.
Tutor Alexei loves Polina, the General’s ward, who is indebted to the Marquis. The General hopes to inherit money from his aunt Babulenka so he can marry Blanche. When Babulenka arrives alive and gambles away much of her fortune, the General’s hopes collapse. The Marquis tells Polina that he will forgive part of a debt in exchange for ending their relationship. Alexei wins repeatedly at roulette and offers Polina money, but she throws it back at him and leaves. He remains alone, fixated on his success at the tables.
In a Russian provincial inn, card sharp Icharjev meets three other gamblers. They decide to cheat the elderly estate owner Michail Glov through his son Alexander, who signs a bill for 200,000 rubles. The others pass the bill to Icharjev, take his cash, and leave on a pretext. Alexander then reveals that they were a gang of card sharps who have cheated Icharjev.
In 1806, Irish Catholic immigrants Dominic Daley and James Halligan await execution for a murder they may not have committed. Father Cheverus travels from Boston to comfort them despite believing them guilty, while Daley’s wife Finola challenges the case by revealing doubts about a witness’s testimony. The governor denies an appeal, and Cheverus ultimately delivers the execution oration after gaining the men’s trust.
In 16th-century Padua, Giovanni watches Dr. Rappaccini’s daughter Beatrice tend her father’s deadly garden and falls in love with her. Beatrice warns that her poisoned body makes her touch and kiss fatal. Giovanni takes an antidote from a family friend, then discovers that he too has become poisonous. Beatrice believes she cannot live without the toxins and dies after drinking the antidote; Giovanni takes it and survives.
At the afterlife court of Versailles, Beaumarchais stages an opera to comfort Marie Antoinette’s ghost and change her fate. Within his play, Figaro and the Almavivas struggle against Bégearss, who plots to arrest them during the French Revolution. Beaumarchais enters the story to rescue the Queen, but Marie Antoinette refuses to alter history. She is executed, while the Almavivas escape to America and Beaumarchais and the Queen are united in Paradise.
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