3280 shows
Clear filtersEsmeralda’s story unfolds among Gringoire, Phoebus, Quasimodo and the Archdeacon in Schmidt and Wilk’s operatic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel. The opera grew from an unfinished orchestral fantasia; its Intermezzo and Carnival Music were performed before Schmidt began composing the opera.
A Latvian operatic melodrama based on motifs from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
God warns Noye that a flood will destroy the sinful world and tells him to build an ark. Noye and his family construct it and bring animals aboard in pairs, while his wife and her friends initially refuse to join. A storm fills the ark; after it subsides, Noye sends out a raven and then a dove, which returns with an olive branch. God tells everyone to leave the ark, promises not to destroy the earth by water again, and sets a rainbow as a sign.
Marussa and Lorenzo, two young villagers, love each other. Her miserly father Menico is persuaded by the village fiddler Biaggio to marry her to the wealthier Nicola, who offers to waive a dowry. Marussa is tricked into believing Lorenzo has been unfaithful, and the wedding is arranged. Shortly before the ceremony, she begs Nicola to release her, but he refuses. Lorenzo, hidden behind a curtain, attacks Nicola with a knife; Nicola stabs him, and Lorenzo dies in Marussa’s arms.
An opera based on the Biblical story of Noah, begun by Fromental Halévy and completed by Georges Bizet.
Text compiled from Guillaume Apollinaire’s poems frames a meeting between Alice, a war correspondent, and Wilhelm, a soldier. Per Nørgård’s two-act chamber opera is written for two singers.
A two-act German-language opera by Gaspare Spontini, with a libretto by Carl Alexander Herklots based on Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh. No plot description is available in the reviewed text.
In Rome, Nero pursues Chrysa, daughter of Epicharis, while Vindex tries to protect her. After Nero starts the great fire and Chrysa reveals she is Christian, the two women die in a collapsing house. Haunted by his victims and pursued by Vindex, Nero kills himself.
A four-act Hungarian opera by Ferenc Erkel, titled Nameless heroes in English.
Across three parts, the opera follows dreamers and explorers from Walter Raleigh’s journey to the New World, to a Houston teenager’s relationship with a Space Shuttle Columbia astronaut, and on to future astronauts exploring the Solar System.
A Portuguese-language opera based on José de Alencar’s novel O Garatuja.
After Emil returns from Mexico, he rekindles a clandestine romance with Marie, now married, while his sister Alexandra’s friendship with Carl grows into love. Frank discovers Emil and Marie together and shoots them; Alexandra grieves before Carl returns and they begin a life together.
In Baku, Gulnaz loves student Sarvar, but her father plans to marry her to the wealthy older merchant Mashadi Ibad. Sarvar and Gulnaz resist the arrangement through a series of comic deceptions, and when Mashadi Ibad discovers his supposed bride is Sarvar, he is persuaded to marry Senem instead.
A five-act romantic Singspiel about the knight Huon and the fairy king Oberon, inspired by Christoph Martin Wieland’s poem.
Oberon hopes to reconcile with Titania by finding faithful human lovers. He sends knight Huon to Baghdad, where Huon meets Reiza and they fall in love. After surviving shipwreck and capture, the couple face execution in Tunis; Oberon and Titania intervene, transport them to Charlemagne’s court, and Huon is pardoned.
Presumed dead after being buried at the Battle of Eylau, Colonel Chabert survives and returns to Paris ten years later to reclaim his property and wife Rosine, who has remarried. Rosine first denies knowing him, then admits the truth; after she rejects him, Chabert shoots himself. Rosine realizes she loved him, takes poison, and dies beside his body.
In 1228, Leonora arrives at Ezzelino da Romano’s castle to confront Riccardo, who seduced and abandoned her and is about to marry Cuniza. Leonora reunites with her father, Oberto, and Cuniza agrees to help them. Cuniza ultimately tells Riccardo to return to Leonora, but Oberto insists on a duel. Riccardo kills Oberto, then leaves in exile and bequeaths his possessions to Leonora, who decides to become a hermit.
Oceane, a sea spirit, becomes human to experience life on land. The work is based on Theodor Fontane’s unfinished novel Oceane von Parceval.
In a village in Roman Syria, Nersa is being courted by the elderly Vadar. A sea spirit, Ers, tells her stories of the sea and its god Init. After the villagers punish Nersa for trying to leave by sending her to spend three days and nights alone on the shore, Init appears and courts her, naming her Oceàna. Vadar and his brother Hareb arrive by boat; Init’s sirens drive the men toward madness. Nersa returns to the village with Vadar and agrees to marry him, though she still dreams of Init. On the wedding day, Init persuades her to flee with him. Vadar lets her go and asks the god to cure Hareb and make him insane instead.
Nero’s court is shaped by plots against his stepsister and wife Octavia and by the Pisonian conspiracy and its suppression. The political action is interwoven with a contrast between Seneca’s philosophical counsel and the clown Davus’s comic observations.
Oedipus solves the Sphinx’s riddle and becomes king of Thebes, where a plague leads him to investigate the unsolved murder of the former king, Laius. The seer Tiresias identifies Oedipus as the killer. Oedipus gradually learns that Laius and Jocasta were his parents and that he killed his father and married his mother, as foretold. Jocasta dies by suicide; Oedipus blinds himself and is banished by Creon, leaving his children behind. Rihm fragments and reframes the myth across scenes drawing on Sophocles, Nietzsche and Heiner Müller.
To end a plague in Thebes, Oedipus seeks the killer of the former king Laius and gradually discovers that he himself killed Laius and is the son and husband of Jocasta. Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus blinds himself; he asks for exile and entrusts his daughters to Creon before returning to the palace.
To end a plague in Thebes, Oedipus vows to find Laius’s murderer. Clues reveal that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother, Jocasta, who kills herself. Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes.
Migrant workers George and Lennie arrive at a ranch after fleeing trouble. They dream of owning a small farm, and the old ranch hand Candy offers his savings to join them. Lennie’s strength and limited judgment repeatedly cause trouble. After Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife, George finds him in a clearing and shoots him before the ranch hands can lynch him. Lennie dies imagining the farm they had hoped to own.
An opera based on the life of Olga Benário Prestes.
After Alexander the Great’s death, his daughter Olimpie lives disguised as the slave Aménais, while her mother Statira hides as a priestess. Statira accuses Cassandre of murdering Alexander, but Olimpie defends him because he once saved her life. Torn between her love for Cassandre and loyalty to her mother, Olimpie sees Cassandre’s army clash with Antigonus’s. In the revised ending, the mortally wounded Antigonus confesses to Alexander’s murder, freeing Cassandre and Olimpie to marry.
Merchant Olivo wants his daughter Isabella to marry the wealthy Le Bross, but she loves her apprentice Camillo. Le Bross helps the young couple, and their supposed suicide threat finally persuades Olivo to accept their marriage; the lovers appear alive, and he blesses their union.
Born into a scholarly family in West Africa, Omar ibn Said is captured and enslaved, separated from his mother and transported to Charleston. After helping Julie escape an abusive enslaver, he is sold to Johnson, then escapes and is jailed in Fayetteville. James Owen buys him and tries to convert him; Omar studies an Arabic Bible, prays and, urged by Julie and his mother’s spirit, begins writing about his experiences and faith.
A prologue and five-act tragédie en musique by André Cardinal Destouches, with a libretto by Antoine Houdar de La Motte.
A five-act tragédie en musique using a libretto previously set by André Cardinal Destouches.
In Cromwellian Hackney, mystic Hannah Trapnell leads residents to London Fields and prophesies a new kingdom of heaven. When Puritan soldiers suppress the gathering, Abel is killed; his pregnant widow sings a lullaby to their unborn child.
A chamber opera for soprano, video, and soundtrack.
One-act opera by Finnish composer Olli Kortekangas and librettist Michael Baran. The work was composed in 2009–2010 for the Sibelius Academy; its narrative is not described in the source.
A conceptual visual opera in three movements based on the Orpheus and Eurydice legend. Its tableaux and compositions follow visual and auditory principles rather than a conventional dramatic sequence.
An unfinished satirical opera planned as a prologue and three acts, centered on Orango, a human-ape hybrid created in a medical experiment. Only about a quarter of the prologue survives; the completed fragment was first performed in an orchestration by Gerard McBurney.
A three-act tragedia lirica based on the Roman legend of the Horatii and the Curiatii.
Haunted by the Furies after killing his mother, Oreste is shipwrecked in Tauris, where his sister Ifigenia serves as a priestess. She does not initially recognize him and must sacrifice foreigners; his wife Ermione and friend Pilade are also captured. When the king refuses mercy, Ifigenia and Filotete turn against him, ending the sacrifices and reuniting the family.
The opera is based on Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy and covers Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides; the source provides no plot narrative beyond the parts and tableau headings.
Venus schemes to separate Orpheus and Eurydice, but Eurydice rejects her efforts to make her love Aristaeus. During a dance, Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus descends to the underworld, where Juno persuades Proserpina and Pluto to release Eurydice on condition that he not look back before they reach the upper world. He turns and loses her again. Jupiter transforms Orpheus, Eurydice, and the lyre into constellations. The epilogue presents the lyre as a symbol of France and wishes King Louis a long life.
Aristaeus, Orpheus’s brother, also loves Eurydice, making Orpheus jealous. Aristaeus rejects Autonoe, who disguises herself as a gypsy and enlists Achilles and Hercules to help. Orpheus plans Eurydice’s murder, but she dies from a snakebite while trying to flee Aristaeus. Orpheus descends to the underworld and persuades Pluto to release her, provided he does not look back before they reach the living world. Orpheus turns and loses Eurydice again. Aristaeus accepts Autonoe, and they marry.
Domenico Belli’s early Baroque work consists of five interludes associated with the Orpheus myth. They were first performed as intermedi during a production of Tasso’s play Aminta; the available text does not supply a plot summary.
At Euridice’s tomb, Orfeo mourns his wife. Amore lets him travel to the Underworld and bring her back, on condition that he not look at her before they return to earth. Orfeo wins passage through the Furies with his singing and finds Euridice among the blessed spirits. On the way back, Euridice is distressed that Orfeo will not look at or explain himself to her. When she refuses to continue, Orfeo turns to her and she dies again. He grieves and prepares to kill himself, but Amore intervenes, restores Euridice to life, and reunites the couple.
An Italian opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli with a libretto by Niccolò Minato.
Orion loves Alphisa, a nymph of Diana, and saves her from a monster. Diana falls in love with Orion, while Scythian king Pallantus also seeks Alphisa’s hand. Diana eventually orders Alphisa to marry Pallantus or be sacrificed, but Pallantus gives his life to save her. Moved by his death, Diana reunites Orion and Alphisa, who marry and ascend among the stars.
This three-act dramma per musica features Oristeo, King of Epirus, his son Euralio, and the princesses Diomeda and Corinta, alongside Trasimede, Prince of Archaea.
The knight Orlando loves Angelica, who loves Medoro, while the shepherdess Dorinda also loves Medoro. When Orlando discovers the lovers’ relationship, jealousy drives him into madness. The magician Zoroastro protects Angelica and Medoro and restores Orlando’s reason. Orlando accepts their love and wishes them happiness, and Dorinda joins the celebration.
Sorceress Ersilla sends her champion Argillano to destroy Orlando, but Orlando defeats him and enters her garden. Ersilla becomes enamored of Brandimarte, who twice helps rescue Orlando; meanwhile Grifone and Origille disguise themselves, and romantic rivalries lead to imprisonment and attempted poisoning. Orlando breaks the spells holding Ersilla’s victims, who awaken and are reunited with their partners.
A three-act setting of Orlando furioso attributed to Antonio Vivaldi and surviving incompletely in manuscript.
After Medoro survives a shipwreck, he reunites with Angelica, who hides their love from the jealous Orlando. The enchantress Alcina uses magic to make Ruggiero forget Bradamante, but Bradamante breaks the spell. When Orlando discovers Angelica and Medoro’s marriage, he becomes furious and destroys Alcina’s power. He regains his reason and forgives the couple.
Set in a quasi-fairy-tale world, Agostino Steffani’s opera focuses on the emotions, relationships, and development of its characters. It adapts Ariosto’s romantic epic Orlando furioso.
Orlando pursues Angelica, who loves Medoro, and rages at their relationship. The sorceress Alcina repeatedly protects the lovers and restrains Orlando, while Rodomonte also pursues Angelica. Medoro is wounded and Orlando duels with Rodomonte. Alcina uses the waters of Lethe to cure Orlando’s madness, erasing his love for Angelica and hatred of Medoro. Angelica and Medoro reunite, Eurilla and Orlando’s squire Pasquale marry, and Orlando sets out for new deeds.
Philosophy and Love debate their power over humanity. Queen Orontea vows to avoid love, but falls for painter Alidoro when he arrives seeking refuge; the courtesan Silandra also loves him. Giacinta, disguised as a boy, arrives after being sent to kill Alidoro. Orontea grows jealous when he paints Silandra, while Creonte disapproves of her love for a commoner. Later Alidoro is accused of stealing a royal medallion. Aristea explains that it belonged to his family: Alidoro is actually Floridano, the kidnapped son of Phoenicia’s king, and he is free to marry Orontea.
A prologue and five-act tragédie en musique; almost all of the score is lost.
Queen Orasia of Thrace loves Orpheus, but he loves Eurydice. Orasia plots against Eurydice, who dies from a snakebite in Orpheus’s arms. Orpheus descends to the underworld and persuades Pluto to release her, but looks back too soon and loses her. Orasia expects him to love her now, but he rejects her. She urges Bacchus’s followers to kill Orpheus, then sees a vision of Orpheus and Eurydice reunited and kills herself in despair.
Krenek’s opera condenses Oskar Kokoschka’s expressionist, psychological treatment of the Orpheus myth. The source identifies the principal roles but gives no further plot synopsis.
A satirical retelling of the Orpheus story as commentary on Louis XIV’s rule. In the prologue, Venus condemns pomp and war during the Nine Years’ War and laments her son; Games and Pleasures, Cupid and the Graces appear.
Orphée, a rustic violin teacher, and his wife Eurydice dislike one another. Eurydice loves their neighbour Aristée, who is actually Pluton, god of the Underworld; Orphée and Pluton plot her death, and Pluton takes her below. Public Opinion forces Orphée to attempt a rescue. On Olympus, the gods revolt against Jupiter, who then descends to the Underworld and falls for Eurydice. At a celebration in Hades, Jupiter tries to smuggle her out. Orphée is told not to look back, but Jupiter’s thunderbolt makes him turn; Eurydice disappears, and the gods assign her to Bacchus. The 1874 revision expands the work to four acts and adds ballet, characters, and musical numbers without changing the main narrative.
This three-act opera retells the Orpheus myth through two parallel audience experiences. One follows Orphée in live performance and virtual reality; the other follows Eurydice through live performance and headphones. Each character reaches a conclusion about their broken relationship.
As Orson Welles lies between life and death, three avatars of him move through memories of his artistic career, personal losses and political concerns. The staged opera combines live performance with projected films and electro-acoustic music; Hagen later incorporated the stage production into a distinct film realization.
In a post-apocalyptic future, a boy is the last surviving human. Flashbacks tell how he was subjected to genetic-engineering experiments.
Walt Whitman introduces Wilde’s story. In London in 1895, hotel managers refuse Wilde rooms under pressure from the Marquess of Queensberry’s detectives. Ada Leverson and Frank Harris urge him to escape to France, but Wilde decides to stay for the trial. He is convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. In Reading Gaol, he endures the prison regime, receives kindness from fellow prisoners and warder Martin, and witnesses the execution of another prisoner. Harris’s advocacy improves his conditions; Leverson visits and tells him he will soon be free. Wilde and Bosie part, and Whitman presents him to the Immortals.
In an imagined third-century Scotland, the Scandinavian ruler Duntalmo invades Caledonia, oppresses its people and plans to marry his son Mornal to Rosmala. She is already betrothed to the bard and warrior Ossian. Caledonians defeat the invaders, allowing Ossian to marry Rosmala.
In Venice at the end of the 15th century, Otello returns victorious from battle and secretly marries Desdemona, daughter of his enemy Elmiro. She was already promised to Rodrigo, son of the Doge. Iago, who also loves Desdemona and resents Otello, pretends to support Rodrigo and manipulates Otello into believing Desdemona has been unfaithful. Otello stabs Desdemona to death, then kills himself after discovering Iago’s deception and her innocence.
After Otello returns victorious to Cyprus, Iago schemes against him and engineers Cassio’s dismissal. Iago plants Desdemona’s strawberry-embroidered handkerchief and twists a conversation to convince Otello that she has been unfaithful. Otello kills Desdemona, then learns that Iago stole the handkerchief and fabricated the evidence. Realizing his error, Otello stabs himself and dies beside her.
Elisabetta sets out from Siberia for Moscow to seek a pardon for her wrongly exiled parents. On the journey she befriends a Tartar group, survives a flood, and exposes the injustice to the Tsar, who pardons and reunites her family.
Roman emperor Ottone loves Cleonilla, who flirts with Ostilio and Caio. Ostilio is actually Tullia, a woman in love with Caio, and she considers killing Cleonilla out of jealousy. When Caio mistakes their meeting for a romance, Ottone orders him to kill Ostilio; Tullia’s identity is revealed, and Cleonilla reconciles with Ottone. The opera ends with Tullia and Caio’s marriage.
Gismonda and her son Adelberto plot to take Italy from Ottone, who is on his way to marry Theofane. Adelberto impersonates Ottone to win Theofane, but is defeated and imprisoned. He escapes with Matilda’s help and abducts Theofane. After renewed conflict, she and Ottone reunite; Emireno is revealed as Theofane’s brother, and Ottone forgives Gismonda and Adelberto. Matilda and Adelberto are also united.
The opera moves from backstage preparations at Ford’s Theatre to a performance of Tom Taylor’s comedy before Lincoln, then to the assassination and its aftermath. Actors embody both the play’s characters and the historical events: Booth shoots Lincoln, the company tries to continue, Laura Keene cradles the dying president, and the actors face arrest and loss.
Malcolm Williamson’s first full-scale opera adapts Graham Greene’s 1958 novel Our Man in Havana. Sidney Gilliat wrote the libretto for this three-act English-language work.
Ned Rorem and J. D. McClatchy’s three-act opera adapts Thornton Wilder’s play and follows a community through birth, maturity, and death.
A pacifist young man rejects his family’s military tradition and is challenged to spend a night in a haunted room. He dies there, leaving his family to confront the cruelty that drove him to prove his courage.
After an attack on the twentieth convoy carrying prisoners to Auschwitz, the prisoners are emboldened to attempt escape. Eleven-year-old Simon Gronowski is pushed from the train carriage and escapes.
The opera deals with runner Paavo Nurmi’s life and ambition to win the marathon at the planned 1940 Helsinki Olympics, cancelled because of World War II. Its four main characters are Nurmi, his spouse Sylvi, future president Urho Kekkonen, and the Dark Lady.
Alaouddin, sultan of the Khilji dynasty, besieges Chittor and asks its ruler, Ratan-Sen, for peace. After seeing the city, he demands Ratan-Sen’s wife Padmâvatî, famed for her beauty. The Khilji army attacks, and the wounded Ratan-Sen tells Padmâvatî that surrendering herself is the only way to save the people. Ratan-Sen is stoned to death, and Padmâvatî joins him on his funeral pyre.
Set in Lucca, the operetta follows violinist Niccolò Paganini’s love affair with Princess Elisa Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister, who loves the arts and theatre. The work was written as a vehicle for tenor Richard Tauber, who later starred in the successful Berlin production.
A commedia dell’arte troupe arrives in a Calabrian village. Canio, who plays Pagliaccio, warns the villagers that he will not tolerate anyone courting his wife Nedda. Nedda’s lover Silvio asks her to elope, but Canio catches them and cannot identify the man. During the performance, Nedda repeats the words she had said to Silvio. Canio abandons the play and demands her lover’s name. When she refuses, he stabs her; Silvio rushes to the stage and is also killed. Canio—or Tonio, in the original manuscript—announces that the comedy is finished.
In a palace, courtiers worry that the King has not left his chamber for three days. He later appears but speaks only through Queen Constance. Valmonte rises in the court and invites Constance to flee with him; Kitty plans their escape during a feast. The King overhears, disguises himself as a beggar at the feast, and is ordered arrested by Ossip, who does not recognize him. Constance and Kitty escape; Valmonte emerges bearing the autocrat’s insignia.
Palestrina is pressured to compose a new mass that could preserve polyphonic music in church services. After a vision inspires him to write it, political conflict at the Council of Trent threatens the effort; his son delivers the completed mass, and the Pope restores Palestrina to favor.
In ancient Persia, three kings arrive on different mounts and compete to kill a monster and win the hand of Princess Palmira.
In 16th- and 17th-century Poland, the Voyevode abducts Maria, an orphan promised to Czapliński, and forces her to marry him. His jealous former lover Jadwiga plots to poison Maria, but shifting affections and a mistaken poisoned toast kill the Voyevode instead; Maria frees Czapliński.
A projected five-act tragédie en musique combining the stories of Adam and Eve with the myths of Prometheus and Pandora.
A setting of Voltaire’s five-act tragedy combining Adam and Eve with the Prometheus and Pandora myths.
Set in heaven, hell, and on earth at the dawn of creation, this sacred representation draws on John Milton’s epic poem and includes roles for Adam, Eve, Satan, Death, Sin, angels, and the Messias.
Three-act opera based on Delavigne’s play Le paria. The listed characters include Idamor, a warrior-caste leader, and Dżares, the pariah who is Idamor’s father; no plot summary is provided.
Paris seeks Helen’s love after choosing Aphrodite in the Judgment of Paris. Helen rejects him at first, but eventually yields after the disguised Cupid, Erasto, intervenes. Pallas Athene warns the couple of sorrow to come as they prepare to sail for Troy.
Duke Azzo suspects his wife Parisina is unfaithful, and she urges her lover Ugo to flee. When Parisina confesses her love, Azzo prepares to execute Ugo, but Ernesto reveals that Ugo is Azzo’s son by his first marriage. Azzo later shows Parisina Ugo’s corpse, and she dies in grief.
In the three-act version, Ugo d’Este and his stepmother Parisina become lovers. When Marquis Nicolò d’Este discovers them, he condemns both to be beheaded.
On Mount Parnassus, Apollo and the Muses gather to celebrate the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, joined by Orpheus. Clio recalls Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne, who escaped him by becoming a laurel tree. The Muses praise Orpheus, who mourns losing Eurydice for a second time after looking back while leading her from the underworld. Apollo and the Muses console him and celebrate the royal couple, whose marriage they say will bless the earth. Tritons sound their conches to begin the wedding festivities; the gods, Muses, nymphs and shepherds celebrate the newlyweds and prophesy a line of heroes.
Parsifal, a youth ignorant of his past, enters the realm of the Grail knights after killing a swan. He witnesses the suffering of their king Amfortas, whose wound came from the stolen Holy Spear. In Klingsor’s enchanted garden, Kundry’s kiss awakens Parsifal’s understanding of Amfortas’s pain; he resists her seduction, retrieves the Spear and returns years later. Parsifal heals Amfortas, becomes the Grail king and redeems Kundry.
A Spanish-language three-act opera adapted by Manuel de Zumaya from Silvio Stampiglia’s libretto about Partenope, queen of Naples. The score is lost.
Queen Partenope receives several suitors, including Arsace and the shy Armindo. Arsace's former fiancée, Princess Rosmira, arrives disguised as Prince Eurimene and tests his fidelity. Partenope rejects the invading Prince Emilio, and Armindo saves her in battle. Rosmira's identity is revealed in a duel, after which she marries Arsace. Partenope chooses Armindo, and Emilio returns to Cumae.
The opera draws on the legend of the siren Parthenope. After failing to lure Odysseus, she drowns herself; her body washes ashore in southern Italy, where Greek colonists found a city in her honor that eventually becomes Naples. The entry does not detail the opera’s staging of the myth.
The opera draws on a 1980s incident in which migrants were abandoned in a broken-down train car; all but one suffocated. The survivor becomes the narrator. The work also reflects on the families and communities left behind by migration.
American businessman Stevenson tries to buy Frenchman Robert’s oil-rich Colorado land cheaply, disguising his wife Ketty as an old woman. Ketty meets Robert while disguised as Stevenson’s niece, and they fall in love; after Stevenson’s new fondness for champagne softens him, the lovers persuade him to divorce Ketty and reveal the land’s value.
At Castle Bunthorne, maidens adore the aesthetic poet Bunthorne, though he loves the dairy maid Patience, who has never been in love. Their former suitors, officers of the Dragoons, return and are rejected. Patience resolves to love Bunthorne selflessly, but when the poet Archibald Grosvenor arrives, the maidens transfer their devotion to him. Grosvenor agrees to become commonplace to escape their attention; the maidens then return to their former fiancés, Patience agrees to marry Grosvenor, and Lady Jane pairs with the Duke of Dunstable, leaving Bunthorne alone.
Patience, an educated and prosperous woman, and Sarah, a farmer’s daughter, fall in love and dream of pioneering together. Their families try to separate them, and Sarah disguises herself as a boy while traveling with Parson Peel, who falls in love with her before learning her identity. The women reunite and leave to build a life together.
Set in 16th-century Brussels, the opera dramatizes a revolt of Flemish nobles. It adapts Victorien Sardou’s play of the same title.
Pauline is a four-act opera with music by Frederic H. Cowen and a libretto by Henry Hersee, adapted from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1838 play The Lady of Lyons.
Set in Vancouver in March 1913, this two-act chamber opera concerns the final days of Canadian writer and performer Pauline Johnson.
An English- and Yorta Yorta-language opera based on the 1939 Cummeragunja walk-off, in which the composer’s grandparents were involved. Its timeline moves between Dreamtime, the Murray and Yarra riverbanks, Shepparton, and the site of the 2008 national apology.
A four-act grand opera adapted from Calderón’s The Mayor of Zalamea. The entry does not describe the plot.
Werner Egk’s German-language operatic adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt.
Set in Gijón and Asturias in the eighth century, the opera centers on Asturian king Pelagio and his daughter Bianca, who was raised by Giralda after her father was believed dead. Bianca loves Abdel-Aor, Moorish governor of Gijón, and Pelagio curses her. Abdel-Aor ultimately kills Bianca after believing she is betraying him to help her father.
Prince Golaud finds Mélisande lost in a forest, marries her, and brings her to his grandfather’s castle. Mélisande grows close to Golaud’s younger half-brother Pelléas, provoking Golaud’s jealousy. Golaud forces his son Yniold to spy on them and later catches the pair confessing their love. He kills Pelléas with his sword. Mélisande gives birth to a daughter but dies soon after, while Golaud begs her to explain what happened.
After Achilles defeats the Amazon queen Penthesilea, he pretends she defeated him so that Amazon law will allow their relationship. When she discovers the truth, her love turns to hatred. Achilles offers another duel unarmed, hoping she will win, but Penthesilea kills him in her fury.
Widowed Pepita, now wealthy, loves Don Luis, a young theological student and son of the respected Don Pedro. Pepita’s maid Antoñona tells Don Pedro about their love; he puts aside his own feelings for Pepita and tries to help them. Don Luis resolves to resist love and leave, but Antoñona makes him promise to see Pepita once more. He challenges Count Genazahar to a duel after the Count insults her. When the wounded Count is defeated, Pepita fears Luis’s religious calling will separate them and locks herself in her room. Luis breaks in, and they embrace.
Perelà is a man made of smoke who forms over thirty-three years in the fireplace tended by three women. When he finds the hearth abandoned, he names himself from their names, puts on boots to anchor himself, and travels to a nearby city. At court, people admire his lightness and ask him to devise a new legal code; Marchesa Olivia falls in love with him. After Alloro sets himself on fire hoping to emulate Perelà, Alloro’s daughter accuses Perelà of murder. He is imprisoned, but removes his boots and escapes through the cell chimney, floating into the sky.
Narrator R follows lounge singer Raoul, pianist Buddy, and Isolde as they plan a bank robbery intended as a philosophical gesture. The seven episodes circle the plan, a missing bank deposit, and an eloping couple who carry money to Indiana for a wedding, while the work interweaves Midwestern scenes, evangelical imagery, and nonlinear reflections on identity.
Persée loves Andromède, who is betrothed to her uncle Phinée. He sets out to defeat Medusa, using gifts from the gods to kill her without looking directly at her. When Juno and Neptune threaten Andromède with a sea monster, Persée saves her. At their wedding, Mérope warns Persée of Phinée’s plot but is killed; Persée turns Phinée to stone, and Venus restores peace.
A three-act tragédie lyrique reworking Quinault’s libretto for Lully, with mythological characters including Perseus, Andromeda, Medusa, Cepheus and Cassiopeia.
Jacques Ibert’s two-act French-language opera takes Perseus and Andromeda as its subject. The available text does not provide the plot.
In a Suffolk coastal village around 1830, fisherman Peter Grimes is questioned after his apprentice dies at sea. The inquest rules the death accidental, but the townspeople remain suspicious. Grimes takes another apprentice, John, and hopes to marry schoolmistress Ellen Orford if he can gain the Borough’s respect. When Ellen finds a bruise on John, Grimes strikes her and takes the boy away. John dies after falling from a cliff as they hurry to their boat. The villagers later search for Grimes; Captain Balstrode tells him to sail out and sink his boat. The next morning, the town resumes its routine and dismisses a coastguard report of a sinking boat.
Peter Ibbetson and Mary, childhood friends, recognize one another again as adults and share a gift for “dreaming true,” meeting in dreams across place and time. Peter accidentally kills the Colonel after learning he is his father, and is sentenced to prison; Mary secures a commutation, allowing them to meet in dreams until her death and Peter’s.
An early German opera by Carl Maria von Weber, based on a novel by Carl Gottlob Cramer. Its libretto has not survived, and the plot is not documented here.
One-act German Singspiel adapted from Annette et Lubin. The underlying story concerns two orphaned cousins who fall in love and seek permission to marry; this entry does not describe how the opera handles that story.
Phaedra falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus, but after he rejects her she joins Aphrodite in seeking revenge and falsely accuses him to Theseus. Hippolytus dies, and Artemis resurrects him at Nemi under the name Virbius, where he struggles with a fragmented sense of identity before becoming King of the Woods.
Ambitious Phaëton abandons his lover Theona in pursuit of Libya, daughter of the Egyptian king. When Epaphus challenges his claim to be the Sun’s son, Phaëton persuades his father to let him drive the sun chariot. He loses control of the horses and threatens the earth with fire, so Jupiter strikes down the chariot and Phaëton falls to his death.
Sculptor Phidias selects Aspasie as a model for Virtue, while his wife becomes involved with Prince Ardimédon. After mistaken pairings, gambling losses, and shifting sculpture models, the characters reconcile and complete a group celebrating domestic happiness.
In Phrygia, Philemon and Baucis prepare their son Aret and Narcissa’s wedding while Mercury watches the village’s increasingly depraved behavior. The gods send a storm that kills the young couple. Later, Jupiter and Mercury arrive disguised as wanderers, and the old couple welcome them; moved by their hospitality and grief, the gods revive Aret and Narcissa and turn the hut into a temple.
A tragédie en musique based on the story of Philomela as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Showing 2,209–2,328 of 3,280 shows
Load more shows