3280 shows
Clear filtersSusan B. Anthony debates politicians and advocates women’s suffrage while the surrounding characters pursue romances and a wedding. After she speaks at a political meeting, the politicians add “male” to the Constitution, provoking a triumphal return home. Years later, the company gathers to unveil her statue, and Susan appears as a ghost to reflect on her life.
In the Scottish Highlands, sylph Aeolia falls in love with Donald, a shepherd engaged to Jessie. Christie, who also wants Jessie, seeks help from the wizard Hela. Aeolia spirits Donald away during his wedding. Hela gives Donald a scarf that transports Aeolia to the underworld of Ashtaroth. The sylphs’ queen, Etheria, gives Donald a magic rose, enabling him to enter the underworld and rescue Aeolia. Etheria marries them, with Aeolia giving up immortality; Jessie and Christie also marry.
In an Alpine frontier village, Clarice, daughter of customs official Pierre, is courted by wealthy Conrad and mountaineer Fritz. She tells them that a local tradition requires a suitor to bring her edelweiss from the highest peak. A blizzard traps guests at Pierre’s chalet. Fritz, disguised as an organ grinder, encounters Clarice and learns she prefers the mountaineer. He rescues Conrad from the snow, and Clarice forgives Fritz. Weeks later, Clarice and Fritz are to marry, but Sergeant Frederico announces that Fritz has been called to war. Conrad offers to take his place, and Clarice gives him a gun as he marches away. Meanwhile Pierre wins the wealthy Miss Spinifex by presenting her with a paper edelweiss and claiming he retrieved it himself.
A mysterious potion makes drinkers become what they have pretended to be. When a troupe of players, a band of brigands, and villagers all drink spiked wine while acting out disguises and deceptions, they are transformed accordingly. Ultrice eventually gives up the antidote, the potion’s effects end, and the characters return to themselves.
An opera that evokes the Mahabharata and Tristan and Isolde while exploring the risks of a journey toward unity or transformation.
A Nightingale’s song moves the Emperor of China, who offers it a golden slipper. When a mechanical bird arrives, the real Nightingale leaves and the Emperor banishes it. As the Emperor lies dying, the Nightingale returns and sings until Death restores his regalia and departs; the bird promises to sing for him each night.
A student asks for a red rose to win the girl he loves. The Nightingale sacrifices her life to create one, but the girl rejects it, and the student throws it away and returns to his books.
In 1555, Vera confesses to her sister Nadezhda that her newborn daughter Olga was conceived during an encounter with Ivan the Terrible, not her husband. When Vera’s husband returns and questions the baby’s origins, Nadezhda protects her sister by claiming to be the mother.
Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov wakes to find that his nose has disappeared. A barber discovers it in a loaf of bread and tries to dispose of it, while Kovalyov encounters the nose dressed as an official of higher rank. It refuses to acknowledge him. Police eventually capture the nose and return it, but Kovalyov cannot put it back on his face. He suspects Madame Podtochina, whose daughter he declined to marry, but she denies any role. The city becomes consumed by rumors about the missing nose. Kovalyov later wakes with it reattached and returns to his usual routine.
Miss Todd and her maid Laetitia shelter Bob, a wanderer who has arrived at their home. After hearing of an escaped convict, Miss Todd suspects Bob but Laetitia persuades her to keep him. Miss Todd leaves money for Bob to steal and then begins stealing from neighbors herself. Laetitia falls in love with Bob, who plans to leave. They rob a liquor store to keep him there, but when the police begin searching for the thief, Bob insists that he is innocent. Laetitia persuades him to escape with her; they take Miss Todd’s valuables and car, leaving Miss Todd alone.
In 1836, a troupe of strolling players arrives in a town in southern France. The troupe are Greek gods who regain their divine powers every hundred years at midsummer. The young poet Hector falls in love with Madeleine, whose father Lavatte plans to marry her to an older nobleman. The gods perform for Lavatte’s guests, enchant the gathering and resist arrest; Jupiter knocks Lavatte down with a thunderbolt. By morning, Hector and Madeleine reconcile, and Lavatte agrees to provide the money that enables her to marry for love. The gods resume their travels.
A four-act Russian opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky about the oprichniks, set at Ivan the Terrible’s court during the oprichnina.
In mid-nineteenth-century Ostrobothnia, farmer Antti awaits trial for defending his fiancée Maija’s honor, while her brother Jussi challenges the oppressive sheriff. After Antti escapes prison, the sheriff arrests and tortures Jussi; Jussi kills him but is mortally wounded, dying with a vision of liberation for the Ostrobothnians.
A French soldier deserts his post, crosses into Germany, and settles into family life as a farmer. When war brings the French army across the border four years later, he is arrested for desertion but ultimately receives an honourable discharge and returns to his farm.
A poorly paid clerk sacrifices his small comforts to buy a new overcoat. The garment briefly changes how others treat him, but its theft pushes him toward humiliation, desperation, and a ghostly aftermath.
An old miser keeps his fiancée behind a locked door because he fears she will be unfaithful. The opera centers on Mungo, the household servant, whose comic scenes include songs and spoken dialogue. The source describes the original Mungo as a racist caricature, performed in blackface; Ira Aldridge later transformed the role into a serious portrayal and added an abolitionist address to the audience.
A one-act comic opera based on Guy de Maupassant’s story En famille. After the Caravan family presumes that the 90-year-old mother has died, events unfold in a Victorian seaside resort.
Aboard a postwar ocean liner, Lisa recognizes a passenger who recalls Marta, a prisoner she once guarded at Auschwitz, and reveals her hidden past to her husband Walter. The action shifts between the ship and the camp, where Lisa tries to control Marta and her fiancé Tadeusz. Tadeusz refuses to play the Kommandant’s requested waltz and instead performs Bach’s Chaconne before being taken to his death; the final encounter between Lisa and Marta remains ambiguous.
During Reconstruction in South Carolina, Union officer Jonathan Wade tries to balance competing Northern and Southern demands and falls in love with Celia Townsend. Political intrigue and threats from both sides culminate in a confrontation at the Townsends’ home, where Jonathan is shot and killed; Celia condemns both factions for his death.
A three-act opera in eighteen scenes assembled from Vincent van Gogh’s letters, Paul Gauguin’s journal, and official documents relating to Van Gogh.
A two-part 1998 stage work: the first part presents the traditional Kunqu staging of the Ming play, while the second is a newly composed opera by Tan Dun that tells an ancient Shanghai opera love story.
In scenes spanning Walt Disney’s last months and earlier events, a delirious, dying Walt revisits his boyhood in Marceline, his studio, family, and ambitions to conquer death. Wilhelm Dantine confronts him over his firing and union activity. Walt interacts with an owl figure, an animatronic Abraham Lincoln, and Andy Warhol; he eventually dies, and Dantine learns he will be cremated rather than cryonised.
A one-act comic opera by Gustav Holst, composed between 1918 and 1922. The work includes an introductory ballet depicting spirits of earth, water, and fire; the Fool is a spoken role with one word.
Philip Glass's three-part mixed-media work examines the life and 1874 trial of photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The first part is a play with incidental music about Muybridge's killing of Harry Larkyns and the trial; the second pairs a violin solo with a slideshow of Muybridge's photographs; the final part brings the characters back for a dance. The source material includes trial transcripts and Muybridge's letters.
In Bedford Gaol, John Bunyan reads from his book as Pilgrim appears in a vision. Pilgrim sets out for the Celestial City, loses his burden at the Cross, and is welcomed at the House Beautiful. He receives armor, defeats Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation, resists the temptations of Vanity Fair, and escapes imprisonment with the Key of Promise. After declining to travel with the comfort-seeking By-Ends, Pilgrim visits the Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains. A Celestial Messenger directs him across the River of Death to the Celestial City. The epilogue returns to Bunyan in prison.
On the eve of his wedding to Naoia, peasant Iolan meets elves who show him the Old One’s magical pipe. Its music gives Iolan visions of a prosperous life with his beloved, but another vision reveals Naoia’s illness and suffering. She dies in his arms; Iolan rejects his new riches, forgives the Old One, and then dies as the elves reflect on those who die young.
Stephen Storace’s three-act English opera, with a libretto by James Cobb, was partly adapted from Storace’s earlier opera Gli equivoci.
Frederic celebrates the end of his apprenticeship to a band of kind-hearted pirates and falls in love with Mabel, daughter of Major-General Stanley. He learns that, because he was born on 29 February, his indenture binds him to the pirates until his twenty-first birthday, which is decades away. Frederic returns to the pirates, who capture Stanley and his daughters, but the Sergeant of Police makes them surrender in Queen Victoria’s name. Ruth reveals that the pirates are noblemen who have gone wrong, and the families reconcile.
A three-act English opera based on Richard Garnett’s “The Poison Maid” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” The source lists the principal characters as Angelica, Tormentilla, Gallanthus, Dipsacus, Empress Persicaria, and Amaryllus.
The penniless artist Chartkov finds a magical painting that offers him wealth and fame. He chooses its assistance over making his own way through his talent, but comes to regret his decision.
Drifter Frank takes a job at a rural diner run by Cora and her much older husband, Nick. Frank and Cora begin an affair and plot to kill Nick so they can start a life together without losing the diner. Their first murder attempt fails, but they eventually succeed.
Dasha’s husband Pyotr leaves her for the innkeeper’s daughter Grunya. When Grunya learns Pyotr is already married, she rejects him, and Yeryomka convinces him that a witch can resolve his problems. Yeryomka lures Dasha to a ravine, where Pyotr kills her. Her family arrives and Pyotr is condemned by his father.
The Sun God’s daughter, the Princess of the Stars, falls to earth and is hidden beneath a lake by Three Horned Enemy. Wolf and the Dawn Birds search for her, but sunrise frightens the enemy away before their battle. The Sun God sends Wolf to continue the search and commands the birds to freeze the lake until the Princess is found.
In a Caucasian mountain village, Fatima falls in love with a Russian prisoner brought to her as a wedding gift. Her father has chosen Abubeker as her bridegroom. The prisoner is condemned to death, but Fatima frees him and urges him to escape. He tells her that he loves another woman in his homeland and runs away. As the villagers prepare revenge, Fatima stabs herself.
A younger son leaves home with his inheritance, loses his fortune in the city, and returns to seek forgiveness. His father welcomes him with celebration, while the loyal elder brother resents the reception; the father urges him to reconcile with his brother.
Theatre director Enrique is confronted by his former lover Gonzalo, who urges him to abandon his safe artistic choices and acknowledge their love. As characters cross a folding screen, the opera moves through a memory of their relationship and a radical staging of Romeo and Juliet, where a boy cast as Juliet sparks a revolution over freedom and convention. Gonzalo becomes the victim of the audience’s fury. Back in his office, Enrique accepts his love for Gonzalo as a magician appears and Gonzalo’s mother arrives to claim her son’s body.
Betta, a fisher girl who is secretly a countess, is sent to a nunnery after being misled about Florian. After the nuns refuse her, she joins a circus troupe called the Brilliants and becomes its celebrated singer. She tests Florian, who proves faithful, and the story ends happily.
Herman becomes obsessed with learning the Countess’s secret sequence of three cards, which is said to guarantee a gambling win. He frightens her to death, and her ghost reveals the cards. At the gambling table Herman wins on the first two cards but loses on the third, drawing the queen of spades; Lisa drowns herself, and Herman takes his own life.
The opera adapts Edith Nesbit’s children’s book but relocates the story to the 1980s, giving it a Cold War background. The entry describes it as a spy mystery but supplies no further plot details.
Tom Rakewell rejects steady work and leaves Anne Trulove for London with Nick Shadow, who tells him that he has inherited a fortune. Tom enters a brothel, then follows Shadow’s advice to marry Baba the Turk. Bored with his marriage, he wishes for a way to turn stones into bread; Shadow produces a sham machine and encourages Tom to market it. The scheme fails, and Tom is ruined. In a graveyard, Shadow demands Tom’s soul, but Tom wins their card game with Anne’s help. Shadow condemns him to madness. In Bedlam, Tom believes he is Adonis. Anne visits and sings to him, then leaves; Tom dies.
The Male and Female Choruses frame the story of a Rome ruled by Tarquinius Superbus. After other soldiers discover their wives’ infidelity, Junius goads the king’s son Tarquinius into testing Lucretia’s chastity. Tarquinius rides to her home and rapes her while she sleeps. The next morning, Lucretia sends for her husband Collatinus and tells him of the assault. She stabs herself and dies. Junius plans to use the crime to foment rebellion, while the choruses end the work with a prayer.
In 1907 in Kainuu, poor crofter Topi and his wife Riika struggle to feed their family. They learn about an election and hope it will improve their lives. Topi dreams of failing to obtain help, then goes to the village to exchange birds for grain. An agitator explains social democracy, and the villagers vote. Topi works at a logging camp while Riika waits anxiously. Their children die from malnutrition. News arrives that ordinary people have won the election, but the promise of better food and health comes too late. A bear awakens and kills Topi; Riika finds him dead with a red line of blood on his throat.
At a monastery turned into a British army mess in famine-era Ireland, Cornet Beaumont accepts a challenge to smoke, drink, and seduce three women before reveille. Two officers’ wives become his first conquests, while Cathleen substitutes herself for the third. The resulting revelations embarrass the regiment; Beaumont resigns and the soldiers leave, to the locals’ delight.
A two-act salon opera for six soloists, set in an imaginary Anglo-Swiss republic.
One-act chamber opera based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Elf of the Rose. The cast includes the Elf, a Girl/Luna, a Beloved/Horus, and the Brother; no plot summary is supplied.
Queen Elvira disguises herself as a peasant to learn about her proposed marriage and meets Manuel, a muleteer in disguise. Conspirators led by Don Pedro try to seize her throne, but Elvira outmaneuvers them. She learns Manuel is the King of Castille, while Don Pedro begs for mercy and the court celebrates.
In Persia, the hospitable merchant Hassan entertains the disguised Sultana and her slaves, then becomes entangled in mistaken identities after taking a narcotic. The Sultan orders executions and marriages, but a chain of misunderstandings ends when Hassan tells a story with a happy ending, securing pardon for himself and the others and allowing Yussuf to marry Heart’s Desire.
Achmed Bey hopes to reform Turkish society but does not want to embarrass his politician father, so he publishes his ideas in French under the pseudonym André Léry. His book becomes popular among Turkish women. When his marriage to Kondja Gül is arranged, she confesses on their wedding night that she cannot love him because she has fallen for André Léry, not knowing the author is Achmed.
A three-act music drama in Boughton’s Arthurian cycle, based on the Arthurian material associated with Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.
This three-act opera by James MacMillan is based on the Branwen story from the Welsh mythology collection the Mabinogion.
Annina’s visions and stigmata lead her neighbors to regard her as a saint, while her brother Michele believes she is ill and tries to protect her. After a wedding gathering ends in murder, Annina urges Michele to surrender and takes her vows as a nun before dying.
Arthur Sullivan’s four-act opera was intended for the Pyne and Harrison Opera Company, but that company closed before staging it. Most of the score and the libretto are lost; surviving selections were performed in concert and an amateur reconstruction with a new libretto was staged in 2000.
In early fifteenth-century France, Count Savoisy’s marriage to Bérengère is dissolved by papal decree so he can marry again and provide an heir. Saracen Yaqoub, a former prisoner, is tried for killing Raymond and pardoned by King Charles VII. The king neglects the war to go hunting, until Agnès Sorel confronts him and he calls his court to battle. In Act IV, Bérengère urges Yaqoub to kill Savoisy before he marries Isabelle. After Savoisy is stabbed, Bérengère takes poison and dies, leaving Yaqoub in despair.
The opera is based on Cao Yu’s play The Wilderness, set in rural China; the source does not provide a plot synopsis.
Joseph Turrin’s opera with a libretto by Bernard Stambler adapts Percy MacKaye’s play based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story Feathertop.
The source identifies the characters Miriam, Reuel and the Postman, but gives no further plot details.
Walter Damrosch’s opera adapts Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, omitting Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl. Unlike the novel, its ending has Hester take poison and die with Arthur Dimmesdale.
Lori Laitman’s opera adapts Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, with a libretto by David Mason.
Eric Sawyer’s opera adapts Barry Werth’s biography of literary scholar Newton Arvin and depicts the scandal that disrupted his life. The cast also includes Ned Spofford and Truman Capote.
This three-act English opera by Thomas Pasatieri is based on Anton Chekhov's 1896 play The Seagull.
A Celtic folk opera drawing on melodies from Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s collection of Hebridean folk songs.
A group of high-school students set out by boat to rescue people affected by a hurricane but become stranded on an island during a second storm. They face danger and conflict before they can continue their rescue effort.
In the World of Shadows, the dead can revisit moments from their past. King Kong hears Pearl through a mirror and becomes infatuated with her; with Orpheus’s help he journeys toward the living world, survives a series of trials, and contacts Pearl, but the two cannot touch.
Kalina and Róza once loved each other, but their families kept them apart; now widowed Kalina and Róza remain estranged while their children, Vít and Blaženka, fall in love. A note promising hidden treasure sends Kalina into a tunnel, where he discovers that the greatest treasure is a loving woman; he returns to Róza, sets aside his pride, and both young couples win their families' consent to marry.
An opera based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel The Secret Garden. The entry does not provide a synopsis of the operatic adaptation.
Two sisters, Anna I and Anna II, travel from Louisiana through American cities to earn money for a family home. Anna I manages her emotional and artistic alter ego Anna II, who encounters one deadly sin in each city and is pressured to abandon moral impulses whenever they conflict with making money. They return home with the means to build the house, but Anna II accepts their compromise with resignation.
Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the isolated Overlook Hotel with his wife Wendy and son Danny. The hotel’s ghosts and history intensify Jack’s violence. Wendy and Danny escape with cook Dick Hallorann after Jack attacks them; Jack stays behind as the boiler explodes. Eight months later, Hallorann comforts Wendy and Danny.
An English-language comic pasticcio opera set during the Siege of Belgrade, with Turkish forces, an Austrian commander and Serbian villagers among its characters. Its plot is not summarized here.
This early English opera depicts the 1522 siege of Rhodes by the Ottoman forces of Suleiman the Magnificent. The story includes Roxelana, Suleiman’s chief consort.
The Jade Emperor dreams of darkness overtaking heaven and earth, then sees it happen when the Cowherd falls in love with the Goddess-Weaver. Her distraction from weaving the stars darkens the sky, so her father separates the lovers with the Silver River. Their grief brings chaos until he permits them to meet once each year.
During the First World War, football star Harry Heegan returns to the front and is gravely injured. In hospital and later at a dance, he confronts his paralysis, the changed relationships around him, and the loss of his former life.
Children Lotte, Kalle and Lily sail a raft toward the open sea but are rescued by pirates, who demand their help freeing their captain from the man-eater Caesar Knochenschmalz. Lotte offers Caesar tofu and is declared his bride. On a magical island, sorceress Cindy transforms the travelers into animals until Kalle persuades her to reverse the spell; Caesar then falls in love with Cindy, and the children sail home. Comic and tragic interludes recount Wilhelm II and Bismarck’s plot over Heligoland and the destruction of Rungholt.
In a Costa Brava town, night watchman Gaspar discovers a hidden ice rink where skater Nuria trains under the watch of social-services official Enric. Enric has diverted public money to build it and becomes obsessed with Nuria, while she is involved with businessman Remo; after Carmen is murdered on the rink, Enric is arrested for embezzlement but the final conversation reveals another killer.
An English-language two-act operetta by John Philip Sousa, based on Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand’s opera The Contrabandista. Its roles include smugglers, a kidnapped maiden and a queen of the smugglers.
The Tsaritsa’s eleven daughters, the Princess-Swans, accidentally hit her in the eyes with a snowball. She wishes for a son and for a whirlwind to sweep her daughters away; a blizzard follows, and the Snow Bogatyr appears. He promises to find his new sisters. In a forest, he defeats a three-headed dragon and rescues the Princess-Swans from a hut on hen’s legs, then leads them home.
The Snow Maiden, daughter of Spring Beauty and Grandfather Frost, longs to live among people. Her parents allow her to be adopted by Bobyl-Bakula and his wife. She is enchanted by Lel’s songs, while Kupava’s wedding to Mizgir is disrupted when Mizgir becomes enamored of the Snow Maiden. The Tsar offers a reward to whoever wins her love. She ultimately falls in love with Mizgir, but her mother warns her to avoid the sun. When she appears with Mizgir at the celebration of Yarilo’s Day, sunlight melts her. Mizgir drowns himself, and the Tsar tells the people that the Snow Maiden’s death ends their long winter.
A hobgoblin’s mirror shatters, scattering fragments that make Kay cold-hearted. The Snow Queen abducts him, and his sister Gerda sets out to rescue him. After captivity in a witch’s garden, Gerda receives a golden coach from a prince and princess, is captured by robbers, and continues north with help from a reindeer. At the Snow Queen’s palace, Gerda sings the lullaby she and Kay shared; the ice splinter in his heart melts, and they return home. The Snow Queen remains alone and laments.
Kay is struck by splinters from a magic mirror and taken to the Snow Queen’s palace. His friend Gerda searches for him, meeting a series of helpers before reaching the frozen kingdom. Her tears free Kay from the mirror’s spell, and the children return home together.
Alexis Pointdextre, engaged to Aline Sangazure, wants love to unite people across social ranks. He hires John Wellington Wells, a family sorcerer, to make a potion that causes everyone who drinks it to fall in love with the first person of the opposite sex they see. Villagers awaken to comically mismatched attractions, including Aline’s sudden love for the vicar, Dr Daly. The spell can be broken only if Alexis or Wells gives his life. Wells sacrifices himself to Ahrimanes, freeing the villagers to pair according to their true feelings.
A two-part chamber opera comprising The Sound of a Voice and Hotel of Dreams, composed by Philip Glass with libretto by David Henry Hwang. The stories are not described in the available account.
Dargomyzhsky sets Pushkin’s blank-verse play about Don Juan directly as an opera, retaining its text unchanged. The work consists principally of characters’ melodic recitative solos, with two small romances for Laura.
A satirical half-act opera that combines elements of Don Giovanni and Carmen. Its finale first parodies tragic operatic endings, then reveals the tragedy as a false ending and introduces a deus ex machina for an incongruous happy conclusion.
A four-act opera based on Boris Polevoy’s novel recounting the life of Soviet pilot Aleksey Maresyev.
At a bar on Christmas Eve, Estelle tells her silent friend Lisa that she knows Lisa loves her husband. Leaving, Estelle concludes that she is the stronger woman, though the composer’s account leaves the question open.
Dolly loves sailor Peter, but her uncle Captain Flint takes her to sea while seeking a more advantageous match. On Mocha, the Sultan buys Dolly from Flint. Peter rescues her, but Admiral Sneak captures and sells her to the Sultan; Dolly agrees to marry the Sultan in exchange for Peter’s freedom. She tricks the Sultan into marrying Isadora instead, and Dolly and Peter reunite.
A substantially rewritten version of Alfred Cellier’s comic opera. The 1887 revision changes characters and their relationships; the source does not provide a separate plot summary.
The opera follows baseball star Josh Gibson from his early days in Pittsburgh through his career in the Negro leagues and his eventual induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It portrays his athletic achievements alongside his grief after his wife’s death, alcoholism, and drug abuse.
A one-act opera based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, with a libretto that includes direct quotations from the novel.
Set at Pipestone Quarry, the opera centers on a love triangle between Sioux protagonist Ohiya, Winona, daughter of the chief, and Sweet Singer, a Shoshone man. Sweet Singer has traveled to Sioux lands after violating religious rules; Ohiya vows to win Winona’s affection. The Sun Dance ceremony is central to the story.
A five-scene opera based on the story of Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy.
Ageing Januarie marries young May despite warnings from his friend Justinus. May and Januarie’s servant Damyan become lovers; after a series of deceptions involving blindness and a pear tree, Januarie dies believing May’s child is his heir. The opera retells Chaucer’s tale in a seasonal cycle, with Pluto and Proserpina shaping the lovers’ fate.
Saltan chooses Militrisa as his bride and goes to war. Her jealous sisters and Babarikha replace the message telling him of the birth of his son, so he orders mother and child sealed in a barrel and cast into the sea. They reach the island of Buyan, where Gvidon rescues a Swan-Bird. She creates a city and helps Gvidon visit his father disguised as a bumblebee. After hearing sailors describe the island’s wonders, Saltan travels there. The Swan-Bird reveals herself as a princess, and Saltan is reunited with his wife and son.
The opera is based on William Shakespeare's play of the same title. It was composed between 1938 and 1950, had a concert premiere in Cincinnati, and was later adapted into a shortened television version.
In Padua, Baptista refuses to let his younger daughter Bianca marry until her tempestuous elder sister Katarina is wed. Bianca’s suitors recruit Petruchio to court Katarina; despite an uneasy start, the pair fall in love and marry.
A monologue based on a 2006 letter in which composer Olav Anton Thommessen criticized his former student Marcus Paus for his tonal music. The work became part of a public debate about musical aesthetics in Norway.
Ben visits Lucy to propose before leaving on a trip, but her long telephone conversations repeatedly interrupt him. He leaves to catch his train without asking. From a telephone booth, he calls Lucy and makes his proposal; she accepts, and they sing a duet over the phone line.
Lee Hoiby’s three-act operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
Prospero uses magic to wreck the ship carrying his usurping brother Antonio, King Alonso and their court onto the island where Prospero and Miranda live. He tests Ferdinand and Miranda’s love while Ariel guides and confuses the shipwrecked party. After Miranda and Ferdinand marry, Prospero reveals himself, forgives his brother, restores the court and releases Ariel.
Opera adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
Based on Gustave Flaubert’s novel The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
As she prepares to graduate from high school on her family’s Midwestern farm, Laurie Moss meets itinerant workers Top and Martin. Laurie and Martin fall in love at her graduation party, but her grandfather orders the workers to leave. Martin hesitates to run away with Laurie and departs with Top. Laurie decides to leave home on her own, despite her mother and sister’s pleas.
Two-act English-language opera inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Twelve Brothers. The cast includes King Hjarne, Queen Gertrude, Princess Lyra, and princes of Frohagord and Hauven; no plot summary appears in the entry.
In Victorian London, gangster Macheath secretly marries Polly Peachum, angering her father, the city’s beggar boss. Macheath’s friend, police chief Tiger Brown, initially protects him, but Peachum pressures Brown by threatening to disrupt Queen Victoria’s coronation parade with beggars. Macheath is arrested and sentenced to hang; in a deliberately comic reversal, a royal messenger pardons him and grants him a title, castle, and pension.
A dying soul travels through spiritual and emotional realms, from the moment of death and a vision of clear white light through peaceful and angry energies, encounters with demons and the Lord of Death, and the choice of a new home before entering life again.
A burlesque opera about a regiment nicknamed the Tigers.
Convicts Henry Cabell and Susannah Holmes are sentenced to transportation and fall in love while imprisoned. When their infant son is refused passage with Susannah to Australia, a guard appeals to Lord Sydney, who arranges for the family to reunite, marry, and travel together. Cabell later prospers in the colony.
Friends Shridaman and Nanda both fall in love with Sita; after Nanda helps Shridaman marry her, the two men behead themselves in a Kali temple. Kali revives them with their heads on the wrong bodies, and the resulting triangle ends with both men killing themselves and Sita joining their funeral pyre.
An opera by Charles Villiers Stanford based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name. The entry does not summarize the plot.
On his 30th birthday, bank manager Josef K. is arrested for an unidentified crime. He searches the court system for answers, consults a lawyer and a painter, and hears a parable from a priest. On the eve of his 31st birthday, the guards take him away and execute him.
Paul Dessau’s first version of the opera, with a libretto by Bertolt Brecht, was presented under this title before being withdrawn and revised. The source identifies the work and its subsequent revision but supplies no plot summary.
Set in and around Washington, Illinois, the opera focuses on Mary Todd Lincoln’s 1875 trial, in which her sanity was evaluated. Flashbacks to her early life lead to the judgment that she is insane and her committal.
Awaiting execution in her prison cell, Joan recalls her meeting with the Dauphin, his coronation at Rheims, the breakdown of their relationship, and her trial and condemnation by Cauchon.
In 1572, oprichnik Gryaznoy loves Marfa, who is betrothed to Lykov, and seeks a potion to make her love him. His former mistress Lyubasha obtains another potion from the Tsar’s physician, Bomelius. At a feast, Gryaznoy gives Marfa what he believes is a love potion, but Lyubasha has substituted poison. Ivan the Terrible chooses Marfa as his bride. She becomes gravely ill; Lykov is executed, and Gryaznoy learns that the potion killed Marfa. Lyubasha confesses, and Gryaznoy kills her. In her delirium, Marfa mistakes Gryaznoy for Lykov and dies.
A young governess takes charge of Miles and Flora at Bly, where she becomes convinced that the ghosts of former servants Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are trying to claim the children. Mrs. Grose and the children initially deny the apparitions. The governess discovers that Miles took a letter she wrote to his uncle; when she presses him to identify who urged him to do so, he names Quint and dies in her arms.
The operetta is based on Ilf and Petrov’s novel The Twelve Chairs. Shostakovich left it unfinished, and only a little of its music survives.
The widows Karolina and Anežka have contrasting temperaments: Karolina enjoys independence, while Anežka remains in mourning. Karolina schemes to bring Anežka and Ladislav together, but jealousy and romantic maneuvering complicate the plan before both widows and a second couple become engaged.
Three Scottish folk stories are woven together: a son is exposed as the thief of his father’s inheritance; a father lured into a fairy hill returns years later without aging; and his grown daughter defeats the Devil after a preacher protects her with a prayer.
A present-day Caribbean prologue recalls an island destroyed by a volcano during carnival. The main story takes place there during Mardi Gras in 1902: Sosthène returns from France and loves his cousin Berthe, while his sister Josephine secretly loves Marcel, the governor’s son. As a volcano threatens, Sosthène and Berthe try to stop Josephine and Marcel eloping; Berthe comes to love Sosthène. Marcel is revealed to be married, and Josephine is separated from him. The volcano erupts, leaving Berthe the only survivor to mourn those she loved.
During the Black Death, Lauretta, Elissa, Panfilo, and Dioneo shelter in a villa and pass the time by staging plays. A monk arrives and proposes a Biblical play; afterward he opens the door to strangers carrying the plague and dies. Two months later, sick and dying visitors fill the courtyard. Lauretta recovers and realizes she loves Panfilo, who has returned from the city. Elissa, who also loves him, forgives them after Dioneo falls gravely ill. At his request the group resumes the Cupid and Psyche play, ending with Venus’s forgiveness and the lovers’ triumph.
A three-act chamber opera based on the Greek myth of Ariadne and adapted from a story by Henry James. The entry does not describe the operatic plot.
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