Didone abbandonata
Johann Adolph Hasse’s Italian opera sets Metastasio’s libretto Didone abbandonata, a story also set by numerous other composers.
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Clear filtersJohann Adolph Hasse’s Italian opera sets Metastasio’s libretto Didone abbandonata, a story also set by numerous other composers.
A three-act Italian dramma per musica by Giuseppe Sarti, based on the story of Dido and Aeneas and set to Metastasio’s libretto.
Baldassare Galuppi’s setting of Metastasio’s libretto Didone abbandonata includes the roles Didone, Enea, Selene, Araspe, Jarba, and Osmida.
A two-act opera by Saverio Mercadante to Andrea Leone Tottola’s libretto after Metastasio’s Didone abbandonata. The characters include Dido, Aeneas, Jarba, and their confidants. No plot description is available in the reviewed text.
Gilfen and Luise’s marriage has lost its passion. Gilfen has repeatedly postponed a planned journey because he fears his wife will be unfaithful. Their friend Trott, who loves Luise, urges Gilfen to leave. Gilfen guesses Trott’s motive and pretends to depart. Trott seizes the chance to declare his love, but Luise rejects him. Gilfen returns, delighted by his wife’s fidelity; Trott leaves, and Gilfen and Luise decide to renew their love.
Based on Euripides’ The Bacchae, the opera depicts the punishment of Pentheus by the maenads, followers of Dionysus. Wellesz described Dionysus’s ability to gather and drive the people to madness as a warning against political seduction by Hitler and his followers.
A Bavarian-dialect music-theatre work by Carl Orff about Agnes Bernauer.
Artist Edmund loves Albertine but faces several rivals, including the revenant Manasse, his son Baron Bensch, and bureaucrat Thusman. A trial involving three caskets finally decides the bridal choice in Edmund’s favor.
A money-driven dictatorship rises to power, bringing greed and destruction. The story explores bonds among individuals, their community, the law, the state, and government.
Leo Fall’s German operetta uses a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Fritz Grünbaum, adapted from a comedy by Emerich von Gatti and Thilo Friedrich Wilhelm von Trotha.
Samurai Matsuōmaru learns that his feudal lord's son is the target of a plot. He sends his own son to the village school in the boy's place; his son dies, fulfilling the family's duty to its lord.
The three-act comic opera is set in Florence in 1555 and includes references to Rossini, Mozart and commedia dell’arte. The entry does not give its plot.
A one-act opera by Giselher Klebe about the assassination of Julius Caesar, set in ancient Rome on the Ides of March.
Cortez arrives in Mexico intending to conquer it, while Montezuma foresees disaster. Their attempts to communicate fail, and Montezuma becomes increasingly disturbed. After Montezuma dies, Cortez dreams before his statue; the funeral sparks a massacre between Aztecs and Spaniards. When everyone is dead, Cortez and Montezuma sing together for the first time.
A two-act opera by Giselher and Lore Klebe based on Carl Zuckmayer’s novella, set in Mainz in 1913.
Ada, a half-fairy, gives up immortality to live with Arindal, but the fairy king sets a condition: she must keep her identity secret for eight years, then torment Arindal on the final day. When she appears to destroy their children and betray his kingdom, Arindal curses her. The curse turns Ada to stone and drives Arindal toward madness. He journeys through guarded portals with a sword, shield, and lyre, ultimately freeing Ada by playing the lyre. The fairy king grants Arindal immortality, and he and Ada rule the fairyland while Arindal’s mortal kingdom passes to Lora and Morald.
Viennese man-about-town Gabriel von Eisenstein postpones serving an eight-day prison sentence to attend a ball hosted by Prince Orlofsky. His wife Rosalinde, maid Adele and prison governor Frank also attend in disguise. Rosalinde poses as a Hungarian countess and takes Eisenstein’s watch as evidence of his attempted infidelity. The next morning, the guests gather at the prison, where Eisenstein learns that Falke orchestrated the evening as revenge for an earlier practical joke; the champagne is blamed and the couple reconciles.
The Empress, daughter of the spirit king Keikobad, has no shadow. Unless she obtains one, her father will reclaim her and her husband, the Emperor, will turn to stone. She and her Nurse descend to the human world and try to obtain the Dyer’s Wife’s shadow. The Empress refuses to take it at the cost of the other woman’s future happiness. She receives a shadow of her own, the Emperor is restored, and the Dyer and his Wife reunite.
A two-act German singspiel set in Salamanca, Spain, at the beginning of the 19th century.
A three-act German singspiel by Reichardt adapting Shakespeare’s The Tempest through Gotter’s libretto.
Aribert Reimann’s German-language operatic adaptation of August Strindberg’s play The Ghost Sonata.
In sixteenth-century Genoa, the deformed nobleman Alviano offers the people his island estate, unaware that his friends use its grotto for abductions and orgies. Carlotta falls in love with him but is seduced by Tamare; when Alviano discovers her with Tamare, he kills him, and Carlotta dies calling for her assailant.
In 1794 Châlons, caricaturist Jacquelin and folk singer Ernestine seek passports to escape. A countess also wants to flee, so she pretends to be Ernestine while the real Ernestine returns with authority from the National Convention and appoints Bonhomme as a delegate. Amid mistaken identities and rivalries, Bonhomme protects the countess and Jacquelin, and Ernestine distracts the others by performing as the Goddess of Reason. Ernestine gives her and Jacquelin’s passports to the countess and Captain Robert; the three couples marry.
A five-part music-theatre work for actors, singers, speaking voices, choir and orchestra, based on Heiner Müller’s play Die Hamletmaschine. The work uses spatial sound and ritualistic, nonnarrative drama.
Johannes Kepler serves Emperor Rudolf II, supports himself by casting horoscopes, and pursues a theory of universal harmony. He marries Susanne, faces religious conflict, and fights for six years to save his mother Katharina from a witchcraft accusation. Wallenstein later hires Kepler as his astrologer. As political turmoil grows under Ferdinand II and Swedish forces invade, the ailing Kepler warns the emperor’s electors in vain and dies. The characters’ roles as celestial bodies are reflected in the opera’s final vision of their ordered orbits.
A peddler impersonates the long-absent son of a village mayor to win the mayor’s ward. The true son returns in disguise, exposing the impostor and resolving the courtship.
Ada is to marry Arindal in a political rather than romantic match. On the eve of the wedding, her lover Cadolt visits her. Ada rejects his advances to defend her honour but pushes him from a balcony, killing him. She still loves Cadolt and collapses and dies at his funeral beside his body.
Carrasco plans to marry his daughter Quiteria to Camacho against her wishes. Quiteria loves Basilio, who enlists Lucinda and Vivaldo to help him, though Don Quixote’s eccentric behavior upsets their schemes. Basilio pretends to stab himself and asks to marry Quiteria before dying. Once the ceremony is complete, he recovers, and Camacho accepts defeat.
Farmer Michel will not let his daughter Röschen marry Töffel until the disappearance of his son Christel’s fiancée, Hännchen, is explained. Hännchen returns and says Count Schmetterling kidnapped her. A storm forces the king’s hunting party to shelter at Michel’s house. Hännchen recognizes the king’s huntsman as the count, and the king reveals his identity, banishes the count, and rewards Michel and his family.
A four-act German-language opera freely based on the Kalevala, using Finnish mythic characters and motifs. Its acts are titled The Proposal to the Bride, The Sampo, Resurrecting Ahti, and The Fight for Luck.
In 1930, Kathrin and the singer François fall in love before his regiment is sent to Algiers. Pregnant and searching for him, she is lured toward Marseille by nightclub owner Malignac. When he tries to assault her, Monique shoots him with François’s pistol; Kathrin and François each believe the other committed the killing and take the blame.
In a Hungarian village, Wania foils a robbery and is promised innkeeper Conrad’s daughter Maria, who loves Count Waldemar. Wania kills the Count and escapes with help from Isbrana and the gypsies. Later, after protecting Conrad and Maria from robbery, Wania is arrested; Isbrana kills herself when he refuses to flee with her.
A poor peasant finds a golden mortar and is imprisoned after his wise daughter predicts that the king will suspect him of stealing its pestle. The daughter solves the king’s riddles and becomes his queen. When she exposes his foolish judgment in a dispute over a young donkey, he orders her to leave; she drugs him and carries him away in a box, and he recognizes her wisdom.
Assad returns from a diplomatic mission in love with a mysterious woman who proves to be the Queen of Sheba. Though he is betrothed to Sulamith, the queen continues to treat him as a stranger; in despair, Assad blasphemes and is banished to the desert. He rejects the queen’s attempt to take him away, then dies in a sandstorm after Sulamith forgives him.
The source describes the project as based on Goethe’s play Die Laune des Verliebten, but it provides no plot for Wagner’s abandoned opera project.
Danae’s father Pollux seeks a wealthy husband for her, and Midas arrives to woo her. Midas is actually disguised as his own servant; Jupiter, pursuing Danae, impersonates Midas. At the wedding Jupiter forces Midas to take his place, but Danae turns to gold when she embraces him. She is restored to life and chooses the mortal Midas. Though Jupiter curses them with poverty and later tries once more to win Danae, he finally accepts her choice.
German-language opera by Max Bruch to a libretto by Emanuel Geibel.
During the Jewish revolt against Syria, Eleazar betrays the Maccabees after falling in love with King Antiochus’s daughter. He repents when Antiochus threatens his younger brothers; Juda renews the revolt, kills the king, and wins, while his mother Lea dies.
In sixteenth-century Nuremberg, young knight Walther von Stolzing falls in love with Eva Pogner, whose father has promised her to the winner of the mastersingers’ song contest. Walther fails to qualify, but Hans Sachs recognizes his talent and helps him shape a new song. Beckmesser mistakenly takes the song for Sachs’s, then fails in the contest; Walther sings it successfully and wins Eva. Sachs blesses the couple and celebrates the mastersingers’ art.
During an improvised opera rehearsal at a count’s palace, the servants perform while Hannchen conducts. A nobleman who fled an arranged marriage falls in love with Louise; after a series of complications, he discovers that she is the bride his uncle had intended for him.
Two-act mystery opera structured as parallel scenes: a world play and a legend, based on an Indian legend. The roles include Buddha, Princess Girnara, Prince Siho, and demons; no further plot is supplied.
During the sixteenth-century Knights’ War, Armgard’s lover Franz joins mercenaries and loses his memory. Her mother Hedwig discovers that the mercenary leader Conrad is Armgard’s father; with help from elves, the family and their community survive the conflict.
Hans Pfitzner’s German-language opera, prompted by Hans Thoma’s painting Der Wächter vor dem Liebesgarten.
A four-act German opera by Giselher Klebe based on Friedrich Schiller’s play The Robbers, set in mid-eighteenth-century Germany.
Laura’s father, the Count of Viterbo, is driven into exile after a political betrayal. Bandit chief Roberto agrees to rescue him if Laura marries him. Roberto saves the Count but later releases Laura to Fernando, who loves her. When the usurper falls, the Count is freed; Roberto dies after a duel, and Laura marries Fernando.
A German-language children’s fairy-tale opera based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, written for soloists and a children’s chorus that also acts.
This sacred Singspiel centers on an allegorical encounter between a wavering Christian and figures representing Christian spirit, divine mercy, divine justice, and worldliness. Mozart’s surviving Part I unfolds through recitatives, arias, and a concluding trio for mercy, justice, and Christian spirit. The remaining two parts of the original three-part work are lost.
Rolf Liebermann’s operatic adaptation of Molière’s The School for Wives, first performed as a one-act English-language version and later expanded into a three-act German version.
The Boll family has been banished to an unspecified region in the Alps. Their daughter Emmeline longs for Jakob, to whom she is secretly engaged. The local count, whose life was once saved by Richard Boll, takes pity on her and helps reunite Emmeline and Jakob.
In Wagner’s fragmentary prose sketch, the outcast Prakriti loves the monk Ānanda. Though ostracized by the other monks, they are permitted a chaste union by Buddha, and Prakriti joins the monastic community.
Marie, a merchant’s daughter, leaves her fiancé Stolzius for the officer Desportes, who abandons and exploits her. As Marie’s life collapses, Stolzius joins Desportes as a servant, poisons him, and dies himself; Marie becomes a beggar, while the opera’s final vision depicts the collective violence of the army and society.
Hans Vogt’s first opera adapts Hermann Kasack’s dystopian novel into a three-act oratorio-opera. It was conceived for radio before Vogt revised it for the stage; the source describes the underlying work as a ruined city populated by humanlike figures who behave like puppets, confronting the horrors of the world wars.
A one-woman opera about Maria Dorothea Stechard, the young beloved of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. In four scenes she recounts her backstory, love, illness and death, and expresses a wish to meet her lover again after death.
An opera by Werner Egk based on a work by Heinrich von Kleist.
A one-act German singspiel by Franz Schubert based on a libretto adapting François-Benoît Hoffman’s play after Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.
Paul Dessau’s German-language opera with a libretto by Bertolt Brecht was revised after its first performance and reinstated under this title.
Two disillusioned men persuade the birds to build a fortified city in the clouds, where Loyal Friend seeks power. Prometheus warns them against challenging the gods, but the birds defy Zeus and their citadel is destroyed by a storm. Good Hope, moved by his encounter with the Nightingale, returns to the human city.
Siegmund seeks shelter in Hunding’s house and discovers that Hunding’s wife Sieglinde is his twin sister. They fall in love, and Siegmund draws the sword Nothung from an ash tree. Wotan orders Brünnhilde to protect Siegmund, but Fricka demands punishment for the twins’ union; Wotan reverses his command, and Siegmund dies in battle. Brünnhilde helps the pregnant Sieglinde escape with the sword fragments. Wotan punishes Brünnhilde by placing her in a fire-ringed sleep, where only a fearless hero can reach her.
A German-language opera by Werner Egk based on a work by Count Franz Pocci.
On Lieschen’s eighteenth birthday, her father must honor an old agreement allowing veteran Franz Spiess to marry her. Franz’s twin Friedrich also returns, each believing the other died in war. The villagers mistake the brothers for one another until they finally meet, and Lieschen is free to marry Anton.
Giacomo Meyerbeer’s two-act German opera adapts a tale from the Arabian Nights. It was first performed in Stuttgart under the title Wirt und Gast, oder Aus Scherz Ernst; the available text does not summarize the plot.
In 1780s Brandenburg, Baron von Felsig returns unexpectedly from New England. Mistaken identities and misunderstandings lead to a traditional happy ending.
Viennese Countess Blanka von Lossin leaves her husband, Polish Count Olinski, after his infidelity and seeks happiness elsewhere. The spouses eventually realize they belong together.
On his way to marry a woman he has never met, the foolish Don Pinto is tricked into drunken sleep by student Don Gaston, who takes his marriage letter. Gaston and Pinto each impersonate the bridegroom, while Clarissa and her true love Gomez struggle against the arranged marriage. The real Pinto is ultimately exposed and expelled, allowing Clarissa and Gomez to marry.
After the expulsion from paradise, Adahm and Chawa face marital conflict while their sons Kajin and Chabel both desire their mother. The opera frames the biblical family story as psychological drama.
A man sings of his love for a woman, who leaves him for a gentleman. When she returns he forgives her, but the cycle repeats: she leaves again, rejects his pleas, and kicks a rock at him. The rock becomes the monster first seen on his back, returning the drama to its opening struggle.
Bored Chinese gods amuse themselves by exchanging the identities of duck-breeder Yang and a mandarin. The mandarin sentences Yang to death after a duck is stolen; in the exchanged bodies, Yang commutes the sentence and mocks the gods. The gods reverse the exchange. When the duck returns, the mandarin considers it a miracle and offers Yang nobility, but Yang chooses to seek his fortune elsewhere.
An opera by Richard Flury based on Paul Zifferer’s 1912 verse play of the same name.
Frau Fluth and Frau Reich each receive a love letter from Falstaff and conspire to punish him. Their husbands suspect infidelity, but the women repeatedly trick Falstaff, first hiding him in a laundry basket and later disguising him as a maid. Meanwhile, Anna Reich resists her parents’ preferred suitors and loves Fenton. In Windsor Forest, the couples frighten and mock Falstaff at a masked ball, while Anna and Fenton marry; the families reconcile.
The source lists the principal characters as Silvanus Schuller, Benigna, Arabella, Rosa Sacchi, Jedidja Potter, François Tortebat and others.
Retired naval captain Sir Morosus disinherits his nephew Henry after learning that Henry’s wife Aminta is an opera singer. The barber devises a sham marriage so Morosus will abandon his plan to wed. Disguised as the quiet bride Timidia, Aminta marries him, then becomes noisily impossible. When a mock divorce fails, the troupe reveals the deception. Morosus laughs, blesses Henry and Aminta’s union, and restores Henry as his heir.
A German opera by Peter Josef von Lindpaintner concerning the Sicilian Vespers. The plot is not described in the entry.
In Bruges at the end of the nineteenth century, Paul remains consumed by the memory of his dead wife Marie. He meets Marietta, a dancer who resembles her, and tries to recreate his wife through her. Most of the opera’s latter two acts unfold in a dream vision: Paul becomes jealous, strangles Marietta with Marie’s hair, and wakes to learn that Marietta had only briefly left her umbrella behind. He decides to leave Bruges and accept Marie’s death.
In biblical Jerusalem, the blind Myrtocle longs to see her husband Arcesius. Christ restores her sight and predicts that she will curse him before sunset. Myrtocle mistakes the handsome Roman captain Galba, who has long loved her, for her husband. Arcesius kills Galba; Myrtocle recognizes her husband’s suffering and blinds herself again by staring at the sun. A shepherd’s search for a lost lamb frames the drama.
A three-act opera by Giselher Klebe based on Honoré de Balzac’s novel La Peau de chagrin.
A three-act German comic opera incorporating 14 musical numbers from Johann Georg Standfuß’s popular farce Der Teufel ist los.
A two-act German opera by Udo Zimmermann, based on Federico García Lorca’s play La zapatera prodigiosa in Enrique Beck’s German translation. Its libretto was written by Zimmermann and Lutz Eberhard Schmidt. No plot description is available in the reviewed text.
The sorceress Aithra shipwrecks Helen and Menelaus to save Helen from her husband’s murderous jealousy. She tells Menelaus that the real Helen was hidden away years earlier and that his wife had been a phantom, then uses magic and a potion to reunite them. Menelaus later kills Da-ud while hunting and believes he has killed Paris; Aithra helps restore the couple, and their daughter Hermione is reunited with them.
On Tuesday, Michael and Lucifer engage in a conflict. In the first act, they compete in a race of the years, with Lucifer trying to halt time and Michael restarting it. In the second act, their forces wage a spatially staged conflict; a wounded trumpeter dies in Eve’s arms, the battlefield dissolves, and the strange figure Synthi-Fou interrupts the war games.
An Italian opera by Francesco Provenzale.
Vasili returns to the Polish monastery where he was raised and reunites with Marina, who has disguised herself as a gypsy after fleeing an arranged marriage. The Count of Lusatia reveals that Vasili is Dimitri, son of Ivan IV. Lusatia and Vanda scheme to separate Dimitri from Marina and marry him to Vanda. Marina seeks Marpha, widow of Ivan IV, and tells her Dimitri is alive, but Marpha cannot confirm his identity. At Dimitri’s camp near Moscow, news arrives that Boris Godunov has been killed. Lusatia admits he murdered the real Dimitri; Dimitri kills him, and Marpha recognizes the young man as her son. Dimitri is acclaimed as leader, while Vanda swears revenge. At his coronation with Marina, Patriarch Job demands Marpha swear Dimitri is her son. As she hesitates, Lusatia shoots Dimitri, who dies with Marina and Marpha asking God to reveal the truth.
After Boris Godunov's death, Russia is divided between supporters of the Godunov family and General Basmanov's faction backing Dimitrij, who is believed to be Ivan the Terrible's son. Marfa recognizes him as her son despite knowing the claim is false, hoping to use him against her old enemies. Dimitrij rescues Xenie and defeats a conspiracy led by Shuisky, but Marina exposes his humble origins; Marina has Xenie killed, and Shuisky shoots Dimitrij.
An opera by William Bolcom and Mark Campbell based on George S. Kaufman’s play Dinner at Eight.
The prophetess Delphia predicts that the footsoldier Diocles will become emperor after killing a mighty boar and marry her niece Drusilla. Diocles kills Aper, whose name means boar, and becomes co-emperor, but abandons Drusilla for Princess Aurelia. Delphia disrupts the wedding and helps Rome’s enemies defeat the army. Diocles repents, defeats the invaders, yields half the throne to Maximian, and leaves with Drusilla.
A prologue and five-act tragédie en musique by Toussaint Bertin de la Doué, with a libretto by Jean-Louis-Ignace de La Serre.
The central figure N. represents both Nietzsche and Dionysos. Scenes draw on Nietzsche’s life and the Dionysos myth, presenting different views on life rather than a linear narrative.
In the opening ballet-pantomime, Pierrot exposes Harlequin’s flirtation with Colombina, but the innkeeper eventually blesses their relationship. In the next acts, the mayor plots to abduct Colombina with help from the night-watchman, while Pierrot remains jealous and flirts with her. Pierrot and the others overhear the plot and stage a false doctor scene to thwart the men. The mayor and night-watchman are frightened by the four lovers disguised as ghosts. The innkeeper finally accepts marriages between Harlequin and Colombina, and Pierrot and Katuška.
Azio Corghi’s opera tells the story of Divara van Haarlem and the Anabaptist seizure of Münster in 1534. It adapts José Saramago’s play In Nomine Dei.
A Chinese-language opera about the siege of Diaoyu Fortress during the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty and the resistance of brothers Ran Jin and Ran Pu.
Haroun, a caliph who claims to love no woman, plans to replace Djamileh, his current slave-girl lover. She disguises herself as a new dancer to test whether she can win his affection. Haroun recognizes her and finally admits his feelings, while his servant Splendiano loses his chance with her.
Dmitry Donskoy competes with Tverskoy for Ksenia’s hand and wins her by leading the Russian victory over Mamai at the Battle of Kulikovo.
An opera-legend based on the Russian epic hero Dobrynya Nikitich.
The opera focuses on the stress and anxiety of key Los Alamos figures preparing for the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb. Its first act is set about a month before the test; the second unfolds on the morning of 16 July 1945 and ends in the final prolonged moment before detonation.
In the sedate Flemish town of Quiquendone, scientist Doctor Ox introduces a gas that speeds up the inhabitants’ lives and thoughts. The town’s cautious leaders approve his project, and the experiment turns a performance of Les Huguenots into chaos, stirring duels and rivalries. In the second act, political agitation becomes a plan to attack a neighboring town; after Ygène protests and an explosion wrecks the town, the residents return to their normal selves and Frantz and Suzel reunite.
In a near-future America at war, a family slowly starves until a man in a dog suit arrives on their property begging for scraps.
An American woman on the run is taken in by the residents of a small town. As tensions grow, their welcome gives way to bullying and abuse.
Faust summons Mephistopheles and bargains away his soul for power. After seducing the Duchess of Parma and abandoning her, he confronts the consequences of his choices and tries to redeem himself by giving his life to her child, while Mephistopheles claims his body.
People and spirits surrounding Faust include his assistant Wagner, Mephistopheles, the Duke and Duchess of Parma, Hans Wurst, and a good spirit. The opera is set in sixteenth-century Mainz and Parma; the source does not summarize its plot.
Pharmacist Stößel plans to marry his daughter Leonore to the drunken Captain Sturmwald, but she loves Gotthold, son of Stößel’s professional rival, Doctor Krautmann. Gotthold and surgeon Sichel sneak into the house and arrange to marry Leonore and Rosalie. Disguised as the captain and a notary, they trick Stößel into signing a marriage contract. When the real captain and the doctor arrive, Stößel and Krautmann accuse each other of deception and poisoning. Claudia brokers a reconciliation; the lovers marry, and Sichel becomes an apprentice in Stößel’s laboratory.
Interrogated about the death of her employer, wealthy widow Vera Donovan, Dolores recounts her life. Flashbacks reveal that her abusive husband Joe also molested their daughter Selena. During a solar eclipse, Vera urges Dolores to solve her problem. Dolores provokes Joe, who chases her into the woods and falls into a well she has concealed; she covers it, leaving him to die. In the present, adult Selena tells police that Dolores could not have killed Vera, who had become close to her. Vera left her estate to Dolores. Selena later learns Vera died by suicide, falling down stairs when Dolores was not looking. Selena leaves, still not having forgiven her mother for killing Joe.
After a disastrous campaign in Morocco, Dom Sébastien returns to Portugal disguised, while his uncle Antonio seizes the throne. Sébastien and Zayda are arrested, and Antonio forces Sébastien to sign away Portugal’s independence in exchange for Zayda’s freedom. They attempt to escape with the poet Camoëns, but the lovers fall to their deaths and the Spanish fleet appears.
Music master Don Bucefalo offers singing lessons to villagers. Rosa, believing her husband Carlino died in war, hopes to study singing and marry Count Belprato; her neighbour Don Marco also loves her. Carlino returns disguised as a soldier to find out whether Rosa still loves him. While Don Bucefalo prepares a village opera, Carlino insults Rosa and sets off accusations. Don Marco eventually funds the production and sings its principal bass role. During rehearsals, Carlino reveals himself and reunites with Rosa; all ends happily.
In 16th-century Spain, Don Carlos loves Elisabeth, who has married his father, King Philip II. Carlos and his friend Rodrigue oppose the oppression of Flanders; their actions bring them into conflict with the King and the Grand Inquisitor. Princess Eboli’s jealousy and a court scandal deepen the crisis. Rodrigue is killed while protecting Carlos, who ultimately confronts the King and the Inquisitor at the monastery of Yuste.
At an inn near Naples, indebted Don Checco lets the innkeeper Bartolaccio mistake him for Count de Ridolfi. Bartolaccio hopes to secure the count’s favor, while his daughter Fiorina and waiter Carletto seek permission to marry. The real count, disguised as artist Roberto, eventually forgives their debts and approves the marriage.
At the rural wedding of Gamace and Chitteria in seventeenth-century Spain, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza arrive and become involved in the dances and verbal intrigues as the feast is prepared. The one-act work combines comic opera with ballet.
In the Sierra Morena, Don Chisciotte encounters Cardenio, whose beloved Lucinda was stolen by Fernando. The Don’s friends stage disguises and adventures to guide him home. Cardenio and Lucinda reunite, and Dorotea and Fernando reconcile. Don Chisciotte is tricked into returning to La Mancha in a cage, believing the events to be sorcery.
King Charles II desires Maritana, a street singer, but cannot approach her because of her low birth. Don César de Bazan is sentenced to death for duelling to protect Lazarille. Don José arranges for Maritana to marry Don César before his execution, hoping to use her as a means to gain the queen’s love. After the execution, Lazarille reveals that he removed the bullets, and Don César is alive. He prevents the king from forcing himself on Maritana, kills Don José to protect the queen’s honour, and is appointed governor of Granada.
In Spain, the libertine nobleman Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore while escaping Donna Anna, then continues his seductions with the help of his servant Leporello. Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, Donna Elvira, Zerlina and Masetto confront him, but he repeatedly escapes. After inviting the Commendatore’s statue to dinner, Giovanni refuses its demand that he repent and is carried to Hell. The others resolve their futures and state the opera’s moral.
Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore after attempting to seduce his daughter Donna Anna. He later pursues Donna Ximena and Maturina while evading vengeance from Anna’s fiancé Ottavio. His servant Pasquariello hears the Commendatore’s statue accept a dinner invitation. When Giovanni refuses Donna Elvira’s plea to reform, the statue arrives at his house and drags him to his death.
Gregorio helps Enrico conceal his secret marriage to Gilda and their child from Enrico’s father, Marquis Giulio. Attempts to hide Gilda and bring the baby into the household lead to confusion before Giulio accepts the marriage.
Don John of Austria and his half-brother Philip II of Spain are rivals for Agnes, who is secretly Jewish and also known as Miriam. The opera draws on Casimir Delavigne's play Don Juan d'Autriche and resolves the conflict happily.
Elderly bachelor Don Pasquale plans to marry after his nephew Ernesto refuses the match Pasquale chose for him. Dr. Malatesta and Ernesto’s beloved Norina deceive Pasquale: Norina poses as Malatesta’s convent educated sister Sofronia and marries him. Once the contract is signed, she becomes demanding and spends extravagantly. Malatesta stages a confrontation that reveals the deception, and Pasquale agrees to let Ernesto marry Norina.
Don Quichotte sets out with Sancho Panza to recover a pearl necklace stolen from Dulcinée by a bandit chief. After mistaking windmills for giants and winning the bandits’ respect, he returns the necklace, but Dulcinée declines his proposal of marriage. As he dies, he gives Sancho an imagined island as his reward.
Don Quixote and Sancho take part in the wedding of Comacho and Quiteria, in a comic one-act serenata based on an episode from Cervantes’s novel. Telemann’s score contrasts elevated operatic style for the noble figures with folk-inspired music for the peasants.
A sung-through comic ballet/opera based on the Don Quixote episode in which a Duke and Duchess devise an elaborate ruse to fool Don Quixote.
A one-act grotesque musical scene featuring Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, devised as a benefit vehicle for the performers Hervé and Desiré. It is based on Cervantes’s novel; the source gives no plot summary.
A German-language opera in three acts by Wilhelm Kienzl, adapting Cervantes’s novel. Its characters include Alonzo Quixano, called Don Quixote, his niece Mercedes and the peasant Sancho Pansa.
After avenging an attack on his father, Rodrigo is crowned King of Spain. Don Julian entrusts his daughter Florinda to the court, and Rodrigo promises to protect her. At his coronation Rodrigo opens a forbidden chest and discovers an Arab flag and a curse that he will be the last of his dynasty. He later rapes Florinda, who writes to her father demanding revenge. Don Julian rebels, defeats Rodrigo at Guadalete, and the Moors enter Spain. Rodrigo becomes a vagrant and, after sheltering with a blind hermit, meets Florinda again, confesses his wrongdoing, and dies in her embrace.
At the Castle of Love, Don Sanche cannot enter because Princess Elzire does not return his affection. The magician Alidor engineers a storm and a staged duel with a false rival; when Don Sanche appears mortally wounded, Elzire realizes her love for him, and the test is revealed.
A zarzuela by José de Nebra.
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