3280 shows
Clear filtersA reclusive king of a mythical realm hears about his kingdom only by overhearing conversations. When a traveling troupe arrives to stage The Tempest, the king listens to auditions and rehearsals and begins to imagine himself as Prospero, confusing the play with events in his own kingdom. He undergoes a psychological collapse, the production never takes place, and the troupe leaves. The king then has a vision of the future as he moves toward death.
The mayor and Spanish Prince Don Giovanni both try to seduce Lilla, a virtuous peasant engaged to Lubino. The queen discovers what is happening and resolves the situation so Lilla can marry the man she loves.
A one-act Italian farsa by Gaetano Donizetti, using Bartolomeo Merelli’s libretto based on August von Kotzebue’s play Der Graf von Burgund. Donizetti set the same libretto in Enrico di Borgogna, but supplied different music for this opera.
A one-act chamber opera setting Dylan Thomas’s play for voices directly, featuring characters including Captain Cat, Organ Morgan, Polly Garter and Reverend Eli Jenkins.
A three-act Russian opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on Fouqué’s Undine through Zhukovsky’s translation. The full score was destroyed, and only five musical numbers survive.
A three-act German opera with spoken dialogue, based on Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s 1811 story Undine.
Knight Hugo marries Undine, a water spirit raised by fishermen, and learns that Bertalda, whom he once loved, is the fishermen’s kidnapped daughter. Bertalda seduces Hugo, who abandons Undine; the water prince Kühleborn takes her back to the depths. When Undine returns during Hugo’s wedding to Bertalda, a flood destroys the castle. Hugo is forgiven but must remain with the water spirits.
Démêloir organizes a lottery whose prize is the hand of Aspasie, a former horse dancer. Anténor Pigeonneau arrives seeking the ticket number he believes will win, while Démêloir disguises himself as a rival suitor to help matters along. After a mix-up and a fortune offered, Aspasie and Pigeonneau marry.
Florival loves Armantine, the ward of painter Cerberti. Florival first tries to approach Cerberti disguised as a Flemish art merchant, but is discovered. His valet then persuades Cerberti to use Florival as a model for a painting of Bayard with Armantine. After their identities are revealed, Florival and Armantine insist on their choice, and Cerberti consents to their marriage.
Du Puy’s comic opera was created for the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen after a planned production of Méhul’s Une folie was cancelled. It uses Jean-Nicolas Bouilly’s French libretto for that opera, translated into Danish. The entry gives no plot summary.
The opera adapts Arthur Miller’s play A View from the Bridge. Its cast includes Eddie and Beatrice Carbone, their niece Catherine, Rodolfo and Marco, and lawyer Alfieri.
A daughter confronts the consequences of her father’s memories being uploaded to a digital cloud in an attempt to preserve his consciousness. Film and live singers present parallel strands, with motion-capture projections allowing the daughter to interact with her digitized father.
Gordon Getty’s opera adapts Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 short story The Fall of the House of Usher.
Uthal seizes the lands of his father-in-law Larmor. Malvina, Uthal’s wife and Larmor’s daughter, is torn between them and tries to prevent a war. Uthal loses the battle and is sentenced to exile. When Malvina offers to follow him, Uthal admits his wrongdoing and reconciles with Larmor.
On the South Pacific island of Utopia, King Paramount hopes his daughter Zara’s education in England will help transform the kingdom. Zara returns with six British advisers, the Flowers of Progress, and their recommendations impress the Utopians. Mr. Goldbury persuades the King to turn the country into a limited-liability company. This change strips the Wise Men Scaphio and Phantis of their power to threaten the King, and the island adopts British institutions and customs. When the Wise Men convince the people that the reforms have made the country dysfunctional, Zara proposes a two-party system whose mutual obstruction will satisfy everyone. The plot ends with the Wise Men imprisoned and Utopia praising Britain.
The Devil tries to thwart smith Vakula’s courtship of Oxana by causing a snowstorm, but Vakula outwits him and rides him to Saint Petersburg. There he obtains the Empress’s boots as proof of his love. Oxana realizes she wants Vakula rather than the boots, and the couple reunites on Christmas morning.
Gilbert travels to Paris to marry Valentine, his fiancée whom he has not seen for ten years. At an inn, Boisrobert, who is trying to evade marriage to actress Sylvia, proposes that Sylvia impersonate Valentine and marry Gilbert. Gilbert falls for Sylvia, while the real Valentine secretly writes the letters that sustain his affection. Sylvia eventually gives up the deception, and Valentine reveals it first; she and Gilbert marry, leaving Sylvia heartbroken.
In late 14th-century Milan, Valentina loves Louis of Orléans, though her father Gian Galeazzo is at war with the French. After the French defeat Milan, Valentina persuades her father to accept peace. Louis is shot during treaty negotiations, nearly rekindling the war. Valentina disguises herself to find a pharmacist who saves him. The true assassin is exposed as an agent of Burgundy, and Valentina and Louis marry.
An opera about painter Vincent van Gogh, based on Irving Stone’s novel Lust for Life.
Vanda reluctantly becomes queen of Poland and refuses to marry the German Prince Roderich, while loving the knight Slavoj, who is of humble birth. After Slavoj wins a contest and defeats Roderich in battle, Vanda vows to sacrifice her life for her country; when victory comes, she keeps that vow by jumping into the Vistula.
Vanessa has spent twenty years waiting for her former lover Anatol to return, keeping the mirrors in her house covered and living with her mother, the Baroness, and her niece Erika. When a young man named Anatol arrives, Vanessa mistakes him for her former lover. Erika falls in love with the young Anatol, but doubts his sincerity and refuses his marriage proposal. Vanessa becomes engaged to him. At the announcement, Erika faints, then runs into the cold while pregnant and miscarries. Vanessa and Anatol leave for Paris. Erika covers the mirrors and closes the house, beginning a vigil of her own.
An unfinished comic opérette by Chabrier to a French libretto by Paul Verlaine; its surviving numbers portray the cowardly, bawdy title character as a satire of Napoleon III.
A chamber opera about the life of Jorge Luis Borges, with roles for an older Borges, a younger Borges, a speaker, a hotel owner, and chorus.
A zarzuela by José de Nebra.
On an Oceanic island, chief Vent-du-soir entertains neighboring chief Lapin-courageux after each has eaten the other’s wife. Vent-du-soir’s daughter Atala loves shipwrecked hairdresser Arthur. Vent-du-soir plans to sacrifice Arthur, but Lapin-courageux hears the musical watch of his lost son in the meal. Arthur had hidden in a bear skin, and they had eaten the bear instead; Atala and Arthur can marry.
Cupid describes a pastoral world and teaches the art of love. Venus falls for Adonis and urges him to join a hunt despite his reluctance. A boar mortally wounds Adonis; he dies in Venus’s arms, and the pastoral company joins her lament.
A one-act opera with singers and dancers, based on Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis.
Interrogated in Northern Ireland, Taco dreams that he and fellow Irishman Dumdum arrive in Las Vegas, where they meet undercover agent Doll and the enigmatic Vera. As the couples head to a wedding chapel, Taco awakens and confesses to an assassination; Vera is left calling for him.
Zuzia and Michal have been promised to one another by their parents, though they have never met. They meet by chance and fall in love. Michal gives his name as Stanisław, so Zuzia’s father refuses to let her marry him: he has given his word to Serwacy, Michal’s father, that she would marry his son. The identities and betrothal are explained before a duel between the fathers, and Zuzia and Michal can marry.
During the Spanish siege of a Moorish fortress at Gibraltar, Queen Veremonda discovers that Spanish general Delio is secretly in love with Moorish queen Zelemina. Disguised as a soldier, Veremonda enters the citadel with Delio and delays his attempt to force himself on her. While the Moors attend a religious celebration, she opens the fortress to Spanish forces and her Amazons. The Spanish win, and Delio and the converted Zelemina marry.
Violaine kisses a leper out of pity and contracts leprosy, while healing him. She later brings back to life the child of her sister Mara and Jakobäus, the man who betrayed her, and then dies.
In Mordasovo, Zina loves the fugitive revolutionary Fedya, who is gravely ill. Her mother, Maria Alexandrowna, hopes to marry Zina to an aging prince so his wealth can help Fedya, while Paul, who loves Zina, disparages her lover and destroys Fedya’s plea to see her. Maria flatters the prince into proposing. The next day, Paul convinces the confused prince that the proposal was a dream, but Maria has arranged a wedding gathering. Zina reveals that she agreed to the scheme only for money and loves Fedya. The prince forgives her, but a servant reports Fedya has died. Later, Zina and her mother leave town; Zina enters a loveless marriage.
After the convent’s pet parrot Vert-Vert dies, the girls appoint Valentin as his replacement. Mimi follows him outside, where he learns to drink, curse, and flirt; he returns to the convent transformed but realizes he loves Mimi. Meanwhile, dragoons plot to rescue their wives, and a night-time confusion ends with Mademoiselle Paturelle agreeing to the couples’ marriages.
Beethoven completed only the opening scene of Schikaneder’s opera. Volivia and Sartagones pledge their love, but her father Porus objects because of an old feud. Sartagones threatens suicide, prompting Porus to relent; the scene ends with the three united. The larger libretto follows Roman intrigue around Volivia’s refuge as a Vestal Virgin.
A group of protagonists seeks to destroy reason by disposing of time and capturing the Sun. Among the opera’s characters are Nero and Caligula in the Same Person, Traveller through All the Ages, Telephone Talker, and The New Ones.
In the substantially revised version, Vielka’s story shifts to a duke’s court and a plot of disguises, mistaken identities, and attacks on the duke. Vielka intercepts a bullet meant for him and dies, envisioning heaven in her final aria.
A zarzuela by José de Nebra.
Estonian-language opera depicting events related to the 1187 Pillage of Sigtuna. The source does not provide plot details.
Viki is a headstrong young woman who prefers to dress and act like a man. After she argues with Feri, he challenges her to a duel without realizing her identity; when he discovers she is a woman, he falls in love with her.
After escaping from a Siberian prison camp, the Hussar Stefan Koltay travels to Tokyo, where he is reunited with Viktoria, his former fiancée, now married to American ambassador John Cunlight. Koltay surrenders himself to Russian authorities when he believes Viktoria no longer loves him; later, after Viktoria returns to Hungary, Cunlight arranges a reunion, and the three couples celebrate the village wine harvest with marriages.
In a Saint-Rémy hospital, Van Gogh recalls childhood, his brother Theo, Maria Hoornik, and fellow painter Paul Gauguin. Rejected by Maria and critics, he cuts off his ear; in the epilogue, he presents a painting and ends by affirming life.
A comic opera about vinkensport, a finch-singing competition that developed in Flanders. The source does not describe the plot.
This unfinished romantic opera is based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and includes characters such as Viola, Sebastian, Orsino, and Olivia.
In fifteenth-century Venice, Violanta seeks revenge on Alfonso, who seduced her sister Nerina, leading to Nerina’s suicide. She persuades her husband Simone to kill Alfonso when he visits their house. But after Alfonso explains his despair and longing for death, Violanta falls in love with him and refuses to signal Simone. When she finally sings the signal at Alfonso’s urging, Simone rushes in with a dagger; Violanta shields Alfonso and is mortally wounded.
At Nether Lypiatt Manor in Gloucestershire, Jessica Douglas-Home reads her great-aunt Violet’s papers and recreates the Edwardian world of Violet, husband Gordon, admirers Max Labouchere, Bill Barrington and Dennis Tollemache, and composer Ethel Smyth. The characters praise Violet and dine together. In Act II, Max is reported killed in the First World War trenches. Jessica mourns the loss of an innocent world and decides to sell the house.
In ancient Rome, plebeian Virginia and patrician Icilio wish to marry, but Appio Claudio has forbidden such unions. Appio desires Virginia and tries to take her by force; Icilio and Virginia’s father, Virginio, stop him. Appio then claims Virginia is not Virginio’s daughter but a slave belonging to his associate Marco. As the case goes to trial, Appio has Icilio killed. Virginia stabs herself rather than be forced into Appio’s power, and her death sparks a plebeian revolt against Appio and the patrician regime.
The opera’s subject concerns despotic power and social injustice.
An operetta set in Colonial Williamsburg at the time of the United States Declaration of Independence.
A distinct musical setting of Pietro Metastasio’s Siface re di Numidia libretto by Baldassare Galuppi. Premiered on 19 May 1762 at Teatro San Salvatore, Venice. The source provides no version-specific plot description.
A distinct musical setting of Pietro Metastasio’s Siface re di Numidia libretto by Johann Adolph Hasse. Premiered on 24 January 1739 at Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo, Venice, with libretto adapted by Domenico Lalli. The source provides no version-specific plot description.
A distinct musical setting of Pietro Metastasio’s Siface re di Numidia libretto by Giovanni Nicola Ranieri Redi. Premiered in summer 1729 at Teatro Cocomero, Florence. The source provides no version-specific plot description.
A nurse reads King Lear to an old man, linking the play with memories of his own life. He envisions Goneril and Regan brought before court and speaks Lear’s lines to imagined figures. His life ends in a vision of Lear dying with Cordelia’s body in his arms, while the nurse continues reading.
Lei Lei’s Chinese contemporary opera adapts the plot and songs of the 1963 film, about frontier guards in Xinjiang. It retains the film’s characters, dialogue, and melodies while expanding the music.
An Argentine long-distance mail pilot is caught in a storm with no place to land. His family waits anxiously for his return, while his employers are concerned both for his safety and for their enterprise.
A setting of the story of the Parthian king Vologeso, deposed by Lucio Vero and restored by Flavio.
A 16th-century man feigns illness and impending death to extract money from those who expect to inherit from him.
After an evening out, a husband and wife discuss their flirtations while preparing for bed; the husband grows jealous when a singer telephones. The next morning, the singer and a friend visit and celebrate social trends. Once they leave, the couple recognize that their relationship rests on love rather than fashion.
In Louisiana during Reconstruction, the house servant Cleota loves Mando, an overseer. Lolo, a jealous voodoo queen, plots against Cleota, who is nearly killed during a ceremony before Mando and Chloe rescue her. Lolo makes another attempt to control Cleota and is shot.
An opera adaptation of Patrick White’s novel Voss, commissioned by the Australian Opera.
Theatre director Mondor commissions writer Henri to compose a Faust opera. Henri encounters Maggy and Greta, goes to a fairground of musical quotations and styles, and faces alternatives about love, work and escape. In Act II the audience votes on choices and on which of four Faust puppet-show versions to follow. In three of four possible endings Henri never begins composing his Faust opera; each version closes with commentary on the events and choices witnessed by the audience.
Based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection.
Venus chooses Adonis as king of Cyprus, angering Mars and the secretly jealous princess Cidippe, who loves Adonis. Mars and Cidippe arrange revenge, but Adonis defeats the monster sent against him. Diana restores the beast, which kills Adonis; Cidippe dies by suicide as Venus and the people mourn.
Ratnakara, a robber chief, abandons violence after releasing a girl he had captured for sacrifice. When his men leave him, he wanders in the forest, utters a spontaneous verse after seeing a hunter kill birds, and seeks Saraswati; she reveals that the girl he spared was herself and blesses him to become the poet Valmiki.
As Richard Wagner dies in Venice, he recalls Die Sieger, an opera sketch he never completed. The recalled story follows the outcast Prakriti’s love for the monk Ānanda; Buddha permits their union and welcomes Prakriti into the monastic community.
On the border of an unnamed Empire, the Magistrate’s peaceful town is occupied by Colonel Joll’s Civil Guard, who torture captured nomads. The Magistrate helps a blinded and crippled barbarian girl return to her people, then is accused of treason, imprisoned, and tortured. After the Empire’s forces are defeated and withdraw, he urges the townspeople to survive the winter and wonders who the true barbarians are.
Giorgio Battistelli’s opera retells the biblical story of the raising of Lazarus. The available text does not provide a detailed plot.
A four-act romantic opera concerning the medieval Danish king Valdemar Atterdag and his plundering and burning of Visby. The entry does not describe the dramatic plot.
In 1944, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg accepts a mission in Hungary to save as many Jews as possible, using protective passports and direct intervention. After the war, Soviet counterintelligence arrests him, and his fate remains uncertain as the opera shifts between imprisonment, memory, and public commemoration. Survivors recall his rescue efforts.
Two sailors fall in love with the same woman. One commits a murder and frames his rival, who flees abroad to save himself. Years later the truth emerges; the innocent sailor returns to his beloved, while the murderer is executed.
Natasha Rostova and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky are drawn together, but while Andrei is away, Natasha is tempted by Anatole Kuragin, who is already married. Her attempted elopement is stopped, and Pierre Bezukhov helps her through the crisis. Napoleon’s invasion brings Andrei, Pierre, and their companions into the war. The Russian army retreats and Moscow burns; Andrei dies after reuniting with Natasha. During the French retreat, Pierre and other prisoners are rescued by partisans, and Kutuzov celebrates the Russian victory.
Based on interviews with more than seventy people from Western Europe born between 1940 and 1949, the opera brings together their memories as a time capsule of roughly eighty years. It explores individual experience and social change, the relationship between private and political life, and the consequences of personal choices.
In an imaginary empire, a general suppresses a revolt, oversees executions, and later questions his role in war after learning he will go blind. Imprisoned in an asylum, he refuses the emperor’s order to return to battle. The regime blinds him to prevent a revolt, and the other inmates kill him.
A one-act chamber opera about Hans and Sophie Scholl, who were executed by the Nazis in 1943 for leading the nonviolent White Rose resistance group.
Greek immigrant steelworker Dionysos becomes obsessed with an opera singer’s voice and leaves work to wait outside the opera house. At night, ghosts of opera heroines urge him to kill himself and join them, but he refuses. The next morning he approaches the singer in the street and is stopped by police.
A chamber opera based on the story of Cai Wenji.
In July, the Bailiff’s children rehearse a Christmas carol as Charlotte prepares to attend a ball. Werther meets Charlotte and falls in love with her, but she has promised her dying mother to marry Albert. Three months later, Charlotte and Albert are married. Werther, unable to accept Charlotte’s request that he leave, returns on Christmas Eve. As Charlotte and Werther confess their love, she sends him away. Werther borrows Albert’s pistols and shoots himself. Charlotte reaches him too late; he dies after she declares her love.
Martinů’s one-act pastoral opera adapts Tolstoy’s story Where Love Is, There God Is Also. The work is written for soloists, a narrator, and a small chorus or vocal ensemble.
After a car crash, six physically unharmed characters wake without memory of who they are or why they were together. Their competing explanations lead to arguments and a fruitless search for help; the adults return in further confusion while the child remains composed, until he finally shouts at the audience.
Edwin, who distrusts his girlfriend Gloria, decides to trust the next person who asks. Richard accepts a £1,000 check from Edwin as a supposed gambling debt and hurries back to Gloria, who insists he cover it. The check bounces, and Vivian finds Edwin about to jump from Waterloo Bridge. She persuades him to meet her the next day. Richard and Vivian discover Edwin and Gloria together, and a pawnbroker’s ticket, check, and introductions resolve the misunderstandings. Vivian plans to go to Paris with Edwin, while Gloria discovers jealousy.
Yevhen Stankovych’s three-act folk opera draws on Nikolai Gogol, Ukrainian traditions, folklore, ceremonies, and epic poetry. The available text does not provide a plot summary.
Margit, a young Hungarian country girl, travels to the city, where an artist seduces and abandons her. She eventually returns home and reconciles with her peasant fiancé, Pista.
After a tantrum, Max is sent to his room and dreams of traveling through a forest to the island of the Wild Things. They hail him as their king, but he stops their wild dance when Tzippy is injured. The dream ends, and Max begins to eat the food his mother left for him.
In this satire on 1980s American life and tabloid journalism, Junior, an “all-American boy,” reacts to the crime and corruption around him by searching for detective hero Dick Tracy.
A five-act opera arranged as a panorama of characters and events, from Portuguese voyages of exploration to modern lunar missions and imagined future space travel. Its libretto combines poetic writing with scientific texts, headlines, travel accounts and historical names rather than telling a conventional story.
Apprentice Dick Whittington flees draper Fitzwarren’s shop with his cat Thomas and boards a ship. On the island of Bambouli, Princess Hirvaia favors him, but he remains faithful to Alice. He becomes rich by ridding the island of rats with the cat’s help. Back in London he reunites with Alice, marries her, and is named Lord Mayor by Edward III.
An unfinished juvenile opera begun by Adolf Hitler around 1905 and modelled on Richard Wagner’s unfinished Wieland der Schmied. Only a piano sketch survives; no plot is described.
Schwanhilde, a swan maiden, marries the smith Wieland after he rescues her. The Neidings steal her ring, kidnap her, and destroy Wieland’s home; they then trap and cripple him. Wieland fashions wings, escapes with Schwanhilde, and the Neidings’ house is destroyed.
One-act English-language opera based on Alfred Sutro’s play A Marriage Has Been Arranged.
In seventeenth-century Scotland, Mary is being married to Douglas, although she loves William Ratcliff. Ratcliff’s father killed Mary’s mother after an affair, and their ghosts haunt him; he has already killed two men betrothed to Mary. After Douglas wounds Ratcliff in a duel, Ratcliff returns to Mary’s room. A song by her nurse Margaret drives him into a frenzy: he kills Mary and her father, then takes his own life. The ghosts of his parents appear and embrace.
Governor Willie Stark faces impeachment for manipulating the state’s legal system while pursuing Anne Stanton, who is engaged to his aide Jack Burden. Judge Burden, Jack’s father, is accused of bribery and later dies by suicide. When Jack learns that Anne plans to marry Stark, he assassinates the governor during a public speech, then is killed himself.
A German- and English-language opera adapted from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, featuring Leontes, Hermione, Polixenes, Paulina and Perdita. The Sicilian scenes are mostly in German, while scenes on the Bohemian seacoast are mostly in English and use jazz-rock music. The entry does not give a plot synopsis.
A four-scene Chinese-language chamber opera based on Lu Xun’s story Diary of a Madman.
Filmmaker Sama persuades Fatma, a sex worker imprisoned for killing her pimp, to tell her life story, marked by sexual violence and family abuse. At the end, Sama urges her to appeal her sentence, but Fatma refuses and asks Sama to tell her story to the world.
Soldier Wozzeck is mocked by his Captain, subjected to a Doctor’s experiments, and troubled by visions as he struggles with poverty. His partner Marie accepts earrings from the Drum Major and begins an affair with him. Wozzeck suspects Marie’s infidelity, sees her dancing with the Drum Major, and is beaten by him. After confronting Marie, Wozzeck takes her to a pond and cuts her throat. He throws the knife into the water and drowns while trying to retrieve or conceal it. The next morning, children learn that Marie is dead; her son follows them to see her body.
Manfred Gurlitt’s 18-scene operatic adaptation of Georg Büchner’s fragmentary play Woyzeck.
In Vermeer’s Delft household in May 1672, his wife Catherine Bolnes, mother-in-law Maria Thins, and fictional model Saskia each write six letters to him while he is away. Their domestic lives contrast with violence outside, which intrudes tragically by the end.
The Protector commissions the Boy, an artist, to create an illuminated book celebrating his family. Agnès, the Protector’s wife, visits the Boy and becomes his lover. The Boy lies to the Protector to protect her, then writes an account of their affair into the manuscript. The Protector murders the Boy and forces Agnès to eat his heart. When he attempts to reassert control, Agnès jumps from a balcony and dies.
Heathcliff, an orphan brought to Wuthering Heights, loves Catherine Earnshaw, and she loves him. Catherine later marries Edgar Linton, while Edgar’s sister Isabella becomes Heathcliff’s wife.
An opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, based on the first part of Emily Brontë’s novel.
An opera depicting the life of civil rights leader Malcolm X.
An opera about Xerxes I, set in ancient Persia and based on the libretto story used in Francesco Cavalli's 1654 opera Xerse. Silvio Stampiglia's version reshapes the earlier work's structure.
A Chinese-language western-style opera based on the ancient story of Xi Shi.
A Cuicamatini (Master Singer) teaches music to three young women, who also learn to prepare maize. The stranger Tohuenyo arrives and seduces them, then finds himself alone. Xochipilli appears and gives him an ocarina, a symbol associated with sex and death. The opera presents sexuality as an analogy for the intense but fleeting nature of life.
A chamber opera based on a supernatural folk tale about two shepherds, their sheep, and the Devil. Its subtitle is A Mechanical Pastoral, and the title derives from a traditional sheep-counting system.
In eleventh-century Kiev, Prince Yaroslav tries to govern amid conflict with Novgorod, the Vikings and the Pechenegs. Norwegian Harald falls in love with Yaroslav’s daughter Elizaveta, but Yaroslav insists he first win a kingdom. Yaroslav’s wife Ingigerda conspires with Ulf against him; stonemason Zhureyko discovers the plot and warns the prince, while Ingigerda is sent to a nunnery. Years later, the Pechenegs invade. Mykyta, secretly the imprisoned governor Kosnyatyn’s son, returns with Djemma and reveals his identity during the crisis. Yaroslav defeats the Pechenegs, though Mykyta dies defending Kiev, and the people praise their ruler.
Villa-Lobos’s opera sets Federico García Lorca’s Spanish-language tragedy Yerma as a three-act opera. The opera was commissioned in 1955 and composed in 1955–1956.
A site-specific underwater opera created by Juliana Snapper and Andrew Infanti, first staged at Victoria Baths in Manchester.
At an imaginary royal court, bored Prince Philipp chooses the mute Yvonne as his fiancée, appalling his parents and provoking ridicule from the courtiers. As repeated attempts to make Yvonne speak heighten tensions, the King and Chamberlain are revealed as murderers. Yvonne is killed during a banquet held in her honour.
Philippe Boesmans’s French-language operatic adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz’s anti-conformist play.
In an isolated Japanese village, farmer Yohyō lives with Tsū, a crane he once rescued who has become his wife. Tsū secretly weaves cloth from her own feathers to help him. Two villagers persuade Yohyō to demand more cloth for profit. Despite her distress and the danger to her life, Tsū weaves again, gives Yohyō the finished fabric, changes back into a crane, and flies away. Yohyō realizes he has lost her love.
Zaide loves Gomatz, an enslaved man, and tries to save him. The Sultan also desires Zaide and reacts with jealousy. Allazim urges the Sultan to see Gomatz as a man rather than a slave. A surviving final quartet suggests that Zaide and Gomatz face punishment or execution, but Mozart’s fragment ends before the opera’s conclusion.
Zaira, a Christian captive, loves Orosmane, the Muslim Sultan of Jerusalem, who agrees to release French prisoners. She and the returning Nerestano discover that the condemned prisoner Lusignano is their father; Zaira’s crisis over her faith delays the wedding. After a jealous courtier manipulates a letter from Nerestano, Orosmane mistakenly believes Zaira is betraying him and kills her, then takes his own life when he learns she was his sister.
Pirate Zampa, formerly the Count of Monza, returns to the estate of merchant Lugano and demands Camille, Lugano’s daughter, as ransom. He declares himself engaged to the marble statue of Alice, the woman he once betrayed, and the statue repeatedly threatens him. Camille marries Zampa under duress; Alphonse discovers that Zampa is his long-lost brother and cannot kill him. As Zampa embraces Camille, Alice’s statue drags him to hell during an eruption of Etna.
A historical opera about a Torghut Mongolian tribe returning from the Nogai Steppe to China during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.
Zanaida is a three-act opera seria by Johann Christian Bach, with a libretto by Giovanni Gualberto Bottarelli based on Metastasio’s Siface, re di Numidia. Bottarelli relocated the action from North Africa to Persia.
Courtesan Silvia, who has renounced love, meets the wandering minstrel Zanetto and falls for him. She hides her identity and sends him toward the dawn rather than reveal herself; after he leaves, she says that love has let her weep again.
A comic opera about a Cossack clan adjusting to life beyond the Danube. Ivan Karas encounters the Ottoman Sultan travelling incognito, and the encounter leads to permission for the Cossacks to return and resettle in Ukraine.
In 1698 Saardam, Peter the Great works incognito in a shipyard and befriends Russian deserter Peter Ivanov, who loves Marie. The burgomaster and foreign ambassadors search for a man named Peter but mistake Ivanov for the tsar. The real Peter secures an alliance, lets Ivanov leave with his passport, blesses his marriage to Marie, and returns to Russia.
In Little Russia in 1762, Olga agrees to marry Nyrkoff if he secures the freedom of Pierre, the serf she has loved since childhood. Pierre kills himself after learning of her sacrifice. The marriage is halted, Olga enters a convent, and a chorus of peasants praises the abolition of serfdom.
Music-hall singer Zazà has an affair with Milio, but leaves him when she discovers that he is married.
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