Opera

The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna.

Zaide (originally, Das Serail) is an unfinished German-language opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780. Emperor Joseph II, in 1778, was in the process of setting up an opera company for the purpose of performing German opera. One condition required of the composer to join this company was that he should write a comic opera. At Salzburg in 1779 Mozart began work on a new opera (now known as Zaide although Mozart did not give it such a title). It contains spoken dialogue, which also classifies it as a Singspiel (literally, "singing play"). Only the arias and ensembles from the first two acts were composed. Missing are an overture and third act.

Yerma is an opera in three acts by Heitor Villa-Lobos based on the tragedy of the same name by Federico García Lorca.

Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue. The opera was recorded in full by the composer in 1966, but it had to wait until April 2011, the centenary of the composer's birth, for a complete theatrical performance (there was an abridged stage production in 1982 and a concert version in 2010).

Wuthering Heights is an opera in a prologue and three acts with music and a libretto by Carlisle Floyd. The work is adapted from Emily Brontë's novel of the same name. The opera premiered at the Santa Fe Opera on July 16, 1958 in a production directed by Irving Guttman. A revised version of the work was performed at the New York City Opera in 1959 with a cast that notably included Phyllis Curtin, Patricia Neway, Frank Porretta, and Richard Cassilly.

Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. A typical performance of the work takes slightly over an hour and a half. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which was left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on 5 May 1914, and knew at once that he wanted to base an opera on it. From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected fifteen to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself, retaining "the essential character of the play, with its many short scenes, its abrupt and sometimes brutal language, and its stark, if haunted, realism..."

Guillaume Tell (English: William Tell, Italian: Guglielmo Tell) is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis. Based on Friedrich Schiller's play William Tell, which drew on the William Tell legend, the opera was Rossini's last, although he lived for nearly forty more years. The overture, in four sections and featuring a depiction of a storm as well as a vivacious finale, the "March of the Swiss Soldiers," is often played.

William Ratcliff (Вилльям Ратклифф or Вильям Ратклиф in Cyrillic; Vill'jam Ratkliff or Vil'jam Ratklif in transliteration) is an opera in three acts, composed by César Cui during 1861-1868; it was premiered on 14 February 1869 (Old Style) at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg under the conductorship of Eduard Nápravník. Although it was revived in Moscow in 1900 under Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, it never became part of the standard operatic repertoire either in Russia or in the West. Nevertheless, this opera has considerable significance in the history of Russian art music, not only for the fact that it was the first opera by a member of The Five to reach the stage, but also for musical features that suggest experimentation and interrelationships among The Five.

"What Men Live By" is a short story written by Russian author Leo Tolstoy in 1885. It is one of the short stories included in his collection What Men Live By, and Other Tales, published in 1885. The compilation also included the written pieces "The Three Questions", "The Coffee-House of Surat", and "How Much Land Does a Man Need?".

Werther is an opera (drame lyrique) in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was based both on fact and on Goethe's own early life. Earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer (1792) and Pucitta (1802).

A Wedding is a comic opera based on Robert Altman's 1978 film A Wedding and was composed by William Bolcom with a libretto written by Robert Altman and Arnold Weinstein.

War and Peace (Op. 91) (Russian: Война и мир, Voyna i mir) is an opera in two parts (an Epigraph and 13 scenes), sometimes arranged as five acts, by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer and Mira Mendelson, based on the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Although Tolstoy's work is classified as a novel, the 1812 invasion of Russia by the French was based on real-life events, and some real-life people appear as characters in both the novel and the opera, e.g. Prince Mikhail Kutuzov and Napoleon Bonaparte.

La Wally is an opera in four acts by composer Alfredo Catalani, to a libretto by Luigi Illica, first performed at La Scala, Milan, on 20 January 1892.

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner with a German libretto by the composer. It is the second of the four works that form Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

Vera of Las Vegas is an opera by Daron Hagen with a libretto by Paul Muldoon based on a treatment co-written with the composer. The Center for Contemporary Opera gave the staged premiere on 25 June 2003 at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre of Symphony Space in New York City.

Venus and Adonis is an opera in three acts and a prologue by the English Baroque composer John Blow, composed in about 1683. It was written for the court of King Charles II at either London or Windsor. It is considered by some to be either a semi-opera or a masque, but The New Grove names it as the earliest surviving English opera. The author of the libretto was surmised to have been Aphra Behn due to the feminist nature of the text, and that she later worked with Blow on the play The Lucky Chance. However, according to the musicologist Bruce Wood, in his 2008 critical edition of the work for the Purcell Society, the librettist "has been identified by James Winn as Anne Kingsmill, subsequently married as Anne Finch". The story is based on the Classical myth of Venus and Adonis, which was also the basis for Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis, as well as Ovid's poem of the same name in his Metamorphoses. In 2014, this opera was revived as part of the Festival of Chichester by City Wall Productions. Reset in the 1960s during the Grosvenor Square protests, City Wall Productions have reimagined and reset he story for a new generation.

Les vêpres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers) is a grand opéra in five acts by the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi set to a French libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier from their work Le duc d'Albe, which was written in 1838. Les vêpres followed immediately after Verdi's three great mid-career masterpieces, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata of 1850 to 1853 and was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 13 June 1855.

Volo di notte (Night Flight) is a one-act opera composed by Luigi Dallapiccola to an Italian libretto he wrote based on the novel Vol de nuit by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first performed at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence on May 18, 1940.

Violet is a 2005 opera by Roger Scruton to a libretto by the composer, based on the biography of Violet Gordon-Woodhouse by her great-niece, Jessica Douglas-Home. The composer has said that "it tells the remarkable story of this woman who lived with four men – it was a story about the history of music, the history of England, about sex, and the difference between the old culture of sex and the new one, and how it all came together in the life of this peculiar woman". The two-act opera was given the first of two performances on 30 November 2005 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, directed by Tess Gibbs and conducted by Clive Timms.

Le Villi (The Willis or The Fairies) is an opera-ballet in two acts (originally one) composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, based on the short story Les Willis by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Karr's story was in turn based in the Central European legend of the vila, also used in the ballet Giselle. The opera, in its original one-act version, was first performed at the Teatro Dal Verme, Milan, on 31 May 1884.

Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro (The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis) is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts, by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on Corinne, ou L'Italie by Mme de Staël.

La vestale (The Vestal Virgin) is an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. It was first performed on 15 December 1807 by the Académie Impériale de Musique (Paris Opera) at the Salle Montansier, and is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece. The musical style shows the influence of Gluck and looks forwards to the works of Berlioz, Wagner and French Grand Opera.

Veinticinco de agosto, 1983 (August the 25th, 1983) is a chamber opera by Juan María Solare, to a Spanish libretto by Javier Adúriz based on the story by Jorge Luis Borges. Solare composed the opera from 1992 to 1993.

Vanessa is an American opera in three (originally four) acts by Samuel Barber, opus 32, with an original English libretto by Gian-Carlo Menotti. It was composed in 1956–1957 and was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 15, 1958 under the baton of Dimitri Mitropoulos in a production designed by Cecil Beaton and directed by Menotti. Barber revised the opera in 1964, reducing the four acts to the three-act version most commonly performed today.

The Turn of the Screw is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, "wife of the artist John Piper, who had been a friend of the composer since 1935 and had provided designs for several of the operas". The libretto is based on the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The opera was commissioned by the Venice Biennale and given its world premiere on 14 September 1954, at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice. The original recording was made during that year, with the composer conducting.

Il turco in Italia (The Turk in Italy) is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani. It was a re-working of a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà set as an opera (with the same title) by the German composer Franz Seydelmann in 1788.

Turandot (UK /ˈtjʊər.ən.dɒt/ or US /ˈtʊr.ən.dɑːt/; Italian pronunciation: ; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, completed by Franco Alfano, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.

The Tsar's Bride (Russian: Царская невеста, Tsarskaya nevesta) is an opera in four acts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer's tenth opera. The libretto, by Ilia Tyumenev, is based on the drama of the same name by Lev Mey. Mey's play was first suggested to the composer as an opera subject in 1868 by Mily Balakirev. (Alexander Borodin, too, once toyed with the idea.) However, the opera was not composed until thirty years later, in 1898. The first performance of the opera took place in 1899 at the Moscow theater of the Private Opera of S.I. Mamontov.

Les Troyens (in English: The Trojans) is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid; the score was composed between 1856 and 1858. Les Troyens is Berlioz's most ambitious work, the summation of his entire artistic career, but he did not live to see it performed in its entirety. Under the title Les Troyens à Carthage, the last three acts were premièred with many cuts by Léon Carvalho's company, the Théâtre Lyrique, at their theatre (now the Théâtre de la Ville) on the Place du Châtelet in Paris on 4 November 1863, with 21 repeat performances.

Il trovatore (pronounced ; Italian for "The Troubadour") is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El trovador (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident."

Trouble in Tahiti is a one-act opera in seven scenes composed by Leonard Bernstein with an English libretto by the composer, dedicated to Marc Blitzstein. It is the darkest among Bernstein's "musicals", and the only one for which he wrote the words as well as the music. The opera received its first performance on 12 June 1952 at Bernstein's Festival of the Creative Arts on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts to an audience of nearly 3,000 people. The NBC Opera Theatre subsequently presented the opera on television in November 1952, a production which marked mezzo-soprano Beverly Wolff's professional debut in the role of Dinah. Wolff later reprised the role in the New York City Opera's first staging of the work in 1958. The original work is about 40 minutes long.

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde, or Tristan and Isolda, or Tristran and Ysolt) is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "eine Handlung" (literally a drama, a plot or an action), which was the equivalent of the term used by the Spanish playwright Calderón for his dramas.

La traviata (Italian: , The Fallen Woman) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The opera was originally entitled Violetta, after the main character. It was first performed on 6 March 1853 at the La Fenice opera house in Venice.

Tosca (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.

Tiefland (or The Lowlands) is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Eugen d'Albert, to a libretto in German by Rudolph Lothar. Based on the 1896 Catalan play Terra baixa by Àngel Guimerà, Tiefland was d'Albert's seventh opera, and is the one which is now the best known.

Three Tales is a video-opera in three acts (titled Hindenburg, Bikini and Dolly) with music by American composer Steve Reich and visuals by Beryl Korot, his wife. It is scored for two sopranos, three tenors, string quartet, percussion, keyboards, and pre-recorded audio. Its premiere was at the Vienna Festival on May 12, 2002; the BBC had commissioned a version for television broadcast four months later. The 12-minute tale Hindenburg had been written (and recorded) in 1998, while the remaining tales were completed (and recorded) in the year of the premiere.

The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) is a "play with music", translated by German dramatist Elisabeth Hauptmann from John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, with music by Kurt Weill, and insertion ballads by François Villon and Rudyard Kipling as adapted by Bertolt Brecht. The work offers a Socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

Thaïs (French pronunciation: ​) is an opera, entitled 'comédie lyrique' in three acts and seven tableaux, by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sibyl Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role. The opera was later revised by the composer and was premiered at the same opera house of the original version on 13 April 1898.

The Tender Land is an opera with music by Aaron Copland and libretto by Horace Everett, a pseudonym for Erik Johns. The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera after viewing the Depression-era photographs of Walker Evans and reading James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. He wrote the work between 1952 and 1954 for the NBC Television Opera Workshop, with the intention of its being presented on television. However, the television producers rejected the opera.

The Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play, The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

De Temporum Fine Comoedia, literally Play of the End of Time, is an opera or musical play by 20th Century German composer Carl Orff. It was his last work and took ten years to compose (1962 to 1972, later revised in 1979). Its premiere was at the Salzburg Music Festival on August 20, 1973, by Herbert von Karajan and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. In this highly personal work Orff presented a mystery play in which he summarized his view of the end of time, sung in Greek, German and Latin.

Tea: A Mirror of Soul (Chinese 茶 "tea") is a 2002 Chinese-language western-style opera by Tan Dun, to a libretto by the composer and Peking opera librettist Xu Ying. The opera was commissioned by Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan and was given its world premiere performance there. The United States premiere was given on July 21, 2007 at the Santa Fe Opera in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Tartuffe is an opera in three acts by Kirke Mechem. Mechem also wrote the English libretto. Based on the Molière's play Tartuffe, or the Impostor, it is a modern opera buffa set in Paris in the 17th century. Tartuffe premiered on May 27, 1980, at the San Francisco Opera It has since seen over 400 performances in six countries and been translated into German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Czech. A "number opera" with arias, duets, trios and ensembles, Tartuffe is one of the most performed operas by an American composer. Also often sung is Mechem's choral arrangement of the song "The Lighthearted Lovers," excerpted from Dorine's aria, "Fair Robin I Love."

Tannhäuser (full title Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg / Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg Castle) is an 1845 opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on two German legends. That of Tannhäuser the legendary medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and that of the Wartburg Song Contest. The story centers on the struggle between sacred and profane love, and redemption through love, a theme running through much of Wagner's mature work.

Tancredi is a melodramma eroico (opera seria or 'heroic' opera) in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi (who was also to write Semiramide ten years later), based on Voltaire's play Tancrède (1760). The opera made its first appearance at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 6 February 1813, and because Il signor Bruschino premiered in late January, the composer must have completed Tancredi in less than a month. The overture, borrowed from La pietra del paragone, is a popular example of Rossini's characteristic style and is regularly performed in concert and recorded.

The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Russian: Сказка о царе Салтане, Skazka o Tsare Saltane) is an opera in four acts with a prologue, seven scenes, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto was written by Vladimir Belsky, and is based on the poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin. The opera was composed in 1899–1900 to coincide with Pushkin's centenary, and was first performed in 1900 in Moscow, Russia.

Il tabarro (The Cloak) is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on Didier Gold's play La houppelande. It is the first of the trio of operas known as Il trittico. The first performance was given on 14 December 1918 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Szibill is an operetta by Hungarian composer Victor Jacobi. The first performance was February 27, 1914, at the Király Színház (King's Theatre) in Budapest. The libretto was written by Ferenc Martos and Miksa Bródy. An English-language version, entitled Sybil, with lyrics by Harry Graham, premiered on January 10, 1916 at the Liberty Theatre in New York City.

Svätopluk is a Slovak opera by Eugen Suchoň with the subtitle Musical drama in three acts. The libretto is by Eugen Suchoň, Ivan Stodola and Jela Krčméry-Vrteľová and is loosely based on Stodola's play Kráľ Svätopluk, which was in turn based on events in the life of King Svatopluk I. Suchoň composed Svätopluk between 1952 and 1959. It was premiered on 10 March 1960 in the Slovak National Theatre, directed by Miloš Wasserbauer and conducted by Tibor Frešo.

Švanda the Bagpiper (Czech: Švanda dudák; also known with the German spelling as Schwanda the Bagpiper), written in 1926, is an opera in two acts (five scenes), with music by Jaromír Weinberger to a Czech libretto by Miloš Kareš, based on the drama Strakonický dudák aneb Hody divých žen (The Bagpiper of Strakonice) by Josef Kajetán Tyl. Its first performance was in Prague at the Czech National Opera on 27 April 1927. It premiered in German, with the translation by Max Brod, at Breslau on 16 December 1928. Other productions quickly followed:

Susannah is an opera in two acts by the American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending. The story focuses on 18-year-old Susannah Polk, an innocent girl who is targeted as a sinner in the small mountain town of New Hope Valley, in the Southern American state of Tennessee.

Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico (Triptych). It received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on December 14, 1918.

Street Scene is an American opera by Kurt Weill (music), Langston Hughes (lyrics), and Elmer Rice (book). Written in 1946 and premiered in Philadelphia that year, Street Scene is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Rice.

The Stone Guest (Каменный гость in Cyrillic, Kamennyj gost' in transliteration) is an opera in three acts by Alexander Dargomyzhsky from a libretto taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's play of the same name which had been written in blank verse and which forms part of his collection Little Tragedies.

Stiffelio is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. The origin of this was the novel "Le pasteur d’hommes", by Émile Souvestre, which was published in 1838. This was adapted into the French play Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois. That was in turn translated into Italian by Gaetano Vestri as Stifellius; this formed the basis of Piave's libretto.

Lo sposo deluso, ossia La rivalità di tre donne per un solo amante (The Deluded Bridegroom, or The Rivalry of Three Women for One Lover) is a two-act opera buffa, K. 430, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart between 1783 and 1784. However, the opera was never completed and only a 20-minute fragment from act 1 exists.

The Fair at Sorochyntsi (Russian: Сорочинская ярмарка, Sorochinskaya yarmarka, Sorochyntsi Fair) is a comic opera in three acts by Modest Mussorgsky, composed between 1874 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto, which is based on Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name, from his early (1832) collection of Ukrainian stories Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The opera remained unfinished and unperformed at Mussorgsky's death in 1881.

Sonntag aus Licht (Sunday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in five scenes and a farewell, to a libretto written and compiled by the composer. It is the last-composed of seven operas that comprise the cycle Licht (Light). Its stage premiere in 2011 was posthumous, more than three years after the composer's death.

La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini set to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime written by Eugène Scribe and choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur. The ballet had premiered in Paris in September 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism.

Il sogno di Scipione, K. 126, is a dramatic serenade in one act (azione teatrale) composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, which is based on the book Somnium Scipionis by Cicero. Mozart had originally composed the work at the age of 15 for his patron, Prince-Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach. After the bishop’s death before it could be performed, Mozart dedicated it to Schrattenbach's successor, Count Colloredo. It was given a private performance in the Archbishop's Palace in Salzburg on 1 May 1772, although not in its entirety. Only one aria, the final chorus and the recitative dedicating it to the new Prince-Archbishop were performed. It is highly unlikely that it was ever performed in its entirety in Mozart's lifetime.

The Snow Maiden (subtitle: A Spring Fairy Tale) (Russian: Снегурочка–Весенняя сказка, Snegúrochka–Vesennyaya Skazka) is an opera in four acts with a prologue by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composed during 1880–1881. The Russian libretto, by the composer, is based on the like-named play by Alexander Ostrovsky (which had premiered in 1873 with incidental music by Tchaikovsky).

The Snow Bogatyr (Снежный богатырь in Cyrillic; Snežnyj bogatyr' in transliteration) is an opera-fairytale for children in one act, two tableaux, by César Cui, composed in 1905. The libretto was written by a school teacher named Marina Stanislavovna Polʹ, using Russian folk tales.

Slow Man is an opera by Nicholas Lens to an English-language libretto by J. M. Coetzee, based on his novel of the same name. The opera was commissioned by the Malta Festival, Poznań and produced by the Opera Poznań.

An operetta by Johann Strauss II. It was conceived from the work of HJC von Grimmelhausen titled Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus or simply Adventurous Simplicissimus, which was opined by many to be the 17th century's greatest German novel.

Simon Boccanegra (Italian: ) is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose play El trovador had been the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, Il trovatore.

Siegfried, WWV 86C, is the third of the four music dramas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner. It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring cycle.

Shining Brow is an English language opera by Daron Hagen, first performed by the Madison Opera in Madison, Wisconsin, April 21, 1993. The libretto is by Paul Muldoon, and is based on a treatment co-written with the composer. The story concerns events in the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Hagen invited Muldoon to write the libretto while the two were both in residency at the MacDowell Colony, in Peterborough, New Hampshire during the summer of 1989.

Le siège de Corinthe (The Siege of Corinth) is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini set to a French libretto by Luigi Balocchi and Alexandre Soumet, which was based on the reworking of some of the music from the composer's 1820 opera for Naples, Maometto II, the libretto of which was written by Cesare della Valle.

Shell Shock is an opera by Nicholas Lens set to an English-language libretto by Nick Cave. The opera has been published by Mute Song, London.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Semiramide (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon. The opera was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on 3 February 1823.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Semele is an opera by John Eccles. The libretto is by William Congreve, drawing on the Greek myth of Semele. The opera was written in 1707, but was never performed in Eccles's lifetime; in fact, the work was not performed until 22 April 1972 when it was given at St John's, Smith Square in London. There was an earlier semi-staged performance given in The Holywell Music Room June 4-6 1964 by the Oxford University Opera Club and Wadham Music Society, conducted by John Byrt - also claiming to be the 'World Premiere'.

Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots (complete title in historical spelling: Die Schuldigkeit Des ersten und fürnehmsten Gebottes; English: The Obligation of the First and Foremost Commandment), K. 35, is a sacred musical play (geistliches Singspiel) composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1767 when he was 11 years old. It is Mozart's first opera or, more specifically, sacred drama, as is suggested by the name. The libretto is now attributed to Ignaz Anton von Weiser, although Johann Adam Wieland or Jakob Anton Marianus Wimmer had been suggested earlier. (The title page of the libretto ascribes it only to "J.A.W.".) Only the first part of the opera was composed by Mozart; the second and third parts were contributed by Michael Haydn and Anton Cajetan Adlgasser respectively. However, these other two parts have not survived. Part I of the opera was first performed on March 12, 1767 in the Knight's Hall of the Palace of the Archbishop, Salzburg. Part II was performed on March 19, and Part III on March 26.

Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), K. 486, is a comic singspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, set to a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, an Austrian Schauspieldirektor. Originally, it was written because of "the imperial command" of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II who had invited 80 guests to a private luncheon. It is regarded as "a parody on the vanity of singers", who argue over status and pay.

The Scarecrow, an opera, premiered at the University of Texas at Austin in February–March 2006. The music was written by Joseph Turrin and libretto by Bernard Stambler. The opera is based on Percy MacKaye's play, which was in turn based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's last short story, "Feathertop."

Satyagraha (/sʌtˈjɑːɡrəhə/; Sanskrit सत्याग्रह, satyāgraha "insistence on truth") is a 1979 opera in three acts for orchestra, chorus and soloists, composed by Philip Glass, with a libretto by Glass and Constance DeJong.

Šárka is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by Julius Zeyer, based on Bohemian legends of Šárka in Dalimil's Chronicle. Written in 1887, the opera lay unproduced for many years and was first performed at the Divadlo na Hradbách (today's Mahen Theatre) in Brno on 11 November 1925 in honour of Janáček’s 71st birthday.

The Saracen (Сарацин in Cyrillic, Saracin in transliteration), is an opera by César Cui composed during 1896-1898. The libretto was written by Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov and the composer, based on a play by Alexandre Dumas (père) entitled Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux. The opera was premiered on 2 November 1899 (Old Style), in Saint Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theatre, with Eduard Nápravník as conductor. It was staged also in 1902 by the Moscow Private Opera at the Solodovnikov Theatre, but never became part of the standard operatic repertoire.

Il Sant'Alessio (Saint Alexius) is an opera in three acts composed by Stefano Landi in 1631 with a libretto by Giulio Rospigliosi.

Samson and Delilah (French: Samson et Dalila), Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the Grossherzogliches (Grand Ducal) Theater (now the Staatskapelle Weimar) on 2 December 1877 in a German translation.

Samstag aus Licht (Saturday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting and four scenes, and was the second of seven to be composed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche (Light: The Seven Days of the Week). It was written between 1981 and 1983, to a libretto written by the composer and incorporating a text by Saint Francis of Assisi, and was first staged in Milan in 1984.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Salvatore Giuliano is an opera in one act by Lorenzo Ferrero to an Italian-language libretto by Giuseppe Di Leva, which was conceived to be performed in tandem with Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. The work was commissioned by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and premiered there on 25 January 1986.

Salome, Op. 54, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer.

Salammbô is an opera in five acts composed by Ernest Reyer to a French libretto by Camille du Locle. It is based on the novel Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert (1862). The opera was first performed at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels on 10 February 1890. The American premiere was at the French Opera House in New Orleans on 25 January 1900 with Lina Pacary in the title role. This rarely nowadays performed opera received the last performance in Paris Opera in 1943, and the most recent one in Marseilles on 27 September 2008, in commemoration of 100th anniversary of Reyer's death.

The Saint of Bleecker Street is an opera in three acts by Gian Carlo Menotti to an original English libretto by the composer. It was first performed at the Broadway Theatre in New York City on December 27, 1954. David Poleri and Davis Cunningham alternated in the role of Michele, and Thomas Schippers conducted. It ran for 92 consecutive performances.

Saint François d'Assise is an opera in three acts and eight scenes by French composer and librettist Olivier Messiaen, written from 1975 to 1983. It concerns Saint Francis of Assisi, the title character, and displays the composer's devout Catholicism. The world première was given by the Paris Opera at the Palais Garnier on 28 November 1983.

Sadko (Russian: Садко) is a character of Russian medieval epic Bylina. He was an adventurer, merchant and gusli musician from Novgorod.

Ruslan and Ludmila (Russian: Руслан и Людмила; Ruslan i Lyudmila) is a poem by Alexander Pushkin, published in 1820. It is written as an epic fairy tale consisting of a dedication (посвящение), six "cantos" (песни), and an epilogue (эпилог). It tells the story of the abduction of Ludmila, the daughter of Prince Vladimir of Kiev, by an evil wizard and the attempt by the brave knight Ruslan to find and rescue her.

Rusalka (pronounced  ( listen)), Op. 114, is an opera ('lyric fairy tale') by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil (1868–1950) based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses. A Rusalka is a water sprite from Slavic mythology, usually inhabiting a lake or river.

Rusalka (Russian: Руса́лка) is an opera in four acts, six tableaux, by Alexander Dargomyzhsky, composed during 1848-1855. The Russian libretto was adapted by the composer from Pushkin's incomplete dramatic poem of the same name. It premiered on 4 May 1856 (Old Style) at the Theatre-circus, conducted by Konstantin Lyadov (father of Anatoly Lyadov), choreographed by Marius Petipa and Nikolay Goltz, but was badly received predominantly by the aristocracy.

The Rose of Castille (or Castile) is an opera in three acts, with music by Michael William Balfe to an English-language libretto by Augustus Glossop Harris and Edmund Falconer, after the libretto by Adolphe d'Ennery and Clairville (alias of Louis-François Nicolaïe (1811–1879)) for Adolphe Adam's Le muletier de Tolède (1854). It was premiered on 29 October 1857, at the Lyceum Theatre, London.

Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose or The Rose-Bearer), Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 26 January 1911 under the direction of Max Reinhardt, Ernst von Schuch conducting. Until the premiere the working title was Ochs von Lerchenau. (The choice of the name Ochs is not accidental, for in German Ochs means ox, which depicts the character of the Baron throughout the opera.)

La rondine (The Swallow) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert. It was first performed at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo (or the Théâtre du Casino) in Monte Carlo on 27 March 1917.

Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique (Théâtre-Lyrique Impérial du Châtelet), Paris on 27 April 1867. This opera is notable for the series of four duets for the main characters and the waltz song "Je veux vivre" for the soprano.

Le roi de Lahore ("The king of Lahore") is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. It was first performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 27 April 1877.

Rogneda (Russian: Рогнеда) is an opera in five acts, composed by Alexander Serov between 1863 and 1865. The scenario, by the composer, was based on the novel Askold's Grave (Аскольдова могила, 1833) by Mikhail Zagoskin and the poem Rogneda (ca. 1825) by Kondraty Ryleyev. The actual Russian libretto was created by Dmitry Averkiev in the same manner as with the composer's previous opera, Judith, with the words written to fit the vocal lines after the music had been composed.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Roberto Devereux (or Roberto Devereux, ossia Il conte di Essex ) is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after François Ancelot's tragedy Elisabeth d'Angleterre (1829), and based as well on the Historie secrete des amours d'Elisabeth et du comte d'Essex (1787) by Jacques Lescéne des Maisons, although Devereux was the subject of at least two other French plays: Le Comte d'Essex by Thomas Corneille and Le Comte d'Essex by Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède.

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (SV 325, The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland) is an opera consisting of a prologue and five acts (later revised to three), set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639–1640 carnival season. The story, taken from the second half of Homer's Odyssey, tells how constancy and virtue are ultimately rewarded, treachery and deception overcome. After his long journey home from the Trojan Wars Ulisse, king of Ithaca, finally returns to his kingdom where he finds that a trio of villainous suitors are importuning his faithful queen, Penelope. With the assistance of the gods, his son Telemaco and a staunch friend Eumete, Ulisse vanquishes the suitors and recovers his kingdom.

Risorgimento! is an opera in one act by Lorenzo Ferrero set to an Italian-language libretto by Dario Oliveri, based on a scenario by the composer. It was completed in 2010 and first performed at the Teatro Comunale Modena on 26 March 2011.

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (German: Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed on 9 March 1930 at the Neues Theater in Leipzig.

Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four epic music dramas by the German composer Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend ("preliminary evening"). It is often referred to as the Ring Cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply The Ring.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Rigoletto (pronounced ) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851.

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes; WWV 49) is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name (1835). The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi. Written between July 1838 and November 1840, it was first performed at the Hofoper, Dresden, on 20 October 1842, and was the composer's first success.

Das Rheingold ( pronunciation (help·info); The Rhinegold), WWV 86A, is the first of the four music dramas] that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen ('The Ring of the Nibelung').

El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show) is a puppet-opera in one act with a prologue and epilogue, composed by Manuel de Falla to a Spanish libretto based on an episode from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. The libretto is an abbreviation of chapter 26 of the second part of Don Quixote, with some lines added from other parts of the work. Falla composed this opera "in devoted homage to the glory of Miguel de Cervantes" and dedicated it to the Princess de Polignac, who commissioned the work. Because of its brief length by operatic standards (about 27 minutes), its very challenging part for a boy opera performer (who has by far the most lines), and its use of puppets, it is not part of the standard operatic repertoire.

Il re pastore (The Shepherd King) is an opera, K. 208, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Metastasio, edited by Gianbattista Varesco. It is an opera seria. The opera was first performed on 23 April 1775 in Salzburg, at the Palace of the Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colloredo.

The Rape of Lucretia (Op. 37) is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, written for Kathleen Ferrier, who performed the title role. Ronald Duncan based his English libretto on André Obey's play Le Viol de Lucrèce.

The Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

A Quiet Place is an American opera in three acts, with music by Leonard Bernstein to a libretto by Stephen Wadsworth. The work is a sequel to Bernstein's 1951 short opera Trouble in Tahiti. In its initial form A Quiet Place was in one act; the premiere, on June 17, 1983, was a double bill: Trouble in Tahiti, intermission, A Quiet Place. In its three-act form, which appeared in 1984, Act Two of A Quiet Place largely consists of Trouble in Tahiti in flashback.

The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 (Russian: Пиковая дама, Pikovaya dama, French: Pique Dame) is an opera in 3 acts (7 scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but the plot was dramatically altered. The premiere took place in 1890 in St. Petersburg (at the Mariinsky Theatre), Russia.

I quatro rusteghi (The Four Curmudgeons, sometimes given as School for Fathers) is a comic opera in three acts, music by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to a text by Luigi Sugana and Giuseppe Pizzolato based on Carlo Goldoni's 18th-century play I rusteghi. The opera is in Venetian dialect (hence "quatro" in place of "quattro").

Puss in Boots (Кот в сапогах in Cyrillic; Kot v sapogakh in transliteration) is a short opera-fairytale for children in three acts, four tableaux, composed by César Cui in 1913. The libretto was written by Marina Stanislavovna Pol'. It was premiered in Rome in 1915 under the title Il gato con gli stivali. A Soviet edition of the opera, with a revised libretto, was published in 1961. By the 1970s this opera seems to have become popular in what was then East Germany as Der gestiefelte Kater. Under that title it was recorded later on CD by the Staatsoper Stuttgart in 1999 in a version designed for radio.

I puritani (The Puritans) is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini, although it was originally written with two acts and changed to three acts on the advice of Gioachino Rossini with whom the young composer had become friendly. The music was set to a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian émigré poet who Bellini had met at a salon run by the exile Princess Belgiojoso, which became a meeting place for many Italian revolutionaries.

Prisoner of the Caucasus (Кавказский пленник in Cyrillic, Kavkazskij plennik in transliteration) is an opera in three acts, composed by César Cui. The libretto is credited to Viktor Aleksandrovich Krylov, and is based on Pushkin's poemThe Prisoner of the Caucasus.

Prince Igor (Russian: Князь Игорь, Knyaz' Igor') is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the Ancient Russian epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Rus prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Cuman ("Polovtsian") tribes in 1185. He also incorporated material drawn from two medieval Kievan chronicles. The opera was left unfinished upon the composer's death in 1887 and was edited and completed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. It was first performed in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1890.

The Power of the Fiend (Russian: Вражья сила, Vrazhya sila) is an opera in five acts by Alexander Serov, composed during 1867-1871. The libretto is derived from a drama by Alexander Ostrovsky from 1854 entitled Live Not As You Would Like To, But As God Commands. The opera was premiered posthumously on 19 April 1871 (Old Style) at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg under Eduard Nápravník. Among the performers were Darya Leonova as Spiridonovna and Mikhail Sariotti as Yeryomka. Although in many ways it is more far-reaching than Serov's previous two operas, this work was not a success.

Powder Her Face, Op. 14 (1995), is a chamber opera in two acts by the British composer Thomas Adès, with an English libretto by Philip Hensher. The opera is 2 hours 20 minutes long. It was commissioned by the Almeida Opera, a part of London's Almeida Theatre, for performances at the Cheltenham Music Festival.

Porin is a grand opera by Vatroslav Lisinski. The Croatian text was by Dimitrija Demeter. It was Lisinski's second opera, the second for Croatia.

Porgy and Bess is an English-language opera composed in 1934 by George Gershwin, with a libretto written by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin from Heyward's novel Porgy and later play of the same title. Porgy and Bess was first performed in New York City on September 30, 1935, and featured an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring artistic choice at the time. After suffering from an initially unpopular public reception due in part to its racially charged theme, the Houston Grand Opera production of the opera in 1976 gained it new popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed operas.

Polyphème is an opera composed by Jean Cras with a libretto by Albert Samain. It was written by Cras during World War I and was premiered in Paris in 1922, giving Cras a burst of notoriety in the French press.

Le piccole storie, subtitled Ai margini delle guerre, is a one-act chamber opera for young people by Lorenzo Ferrero set to an Italian-language libretto by Giuseppe Di Leva. Some episodes are loosely based on Guy de Maupassant's 1884 short story Le Lit 29 and on William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. The stories do not touch directly upon the subject of war but depict moments in the lives of involuntary victims who subsist, as the subtitle suggests, on the margins of wars.

Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the narrative poem, "Peter Grimes," in George Crabbe's book The Borough. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional village which shares some similarities with Crabbe's, and later Britten's, own home of Aldeburgh, a town on England's east coast.

Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande. It premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande in a performance conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work. The only opera Debussy ever completed, it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music.

Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run. Set in ancient times on the island of Ceylon, the opera tells the story of how two men's vow of eternal friendship is threatened by their love for the same woman, whose own dilemma is the conflict between secular love and her sacred oath as a priestess. The friendship duet "Au fond du temple saint", generally known as "The Pearl Fishers Duet", is one of the best-known numbers in Western opera.

Le Pays (The Land) is a three-act opera by Guy Ropartz with a libretto by Charles Le Goffic. It was composed between 1908 and 1910 and was premiered in 1912 at Nancy. It is an important example of the Breton cultural renaissance of the early 20th century.

Parsifal (WWV 111) is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a 13th-century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail (12 с.).

Paradise Lost is an opera in two acts with music by Krzysztof Penderecki and an English libretto by Christopher Fry. The opera is based on the epic poem of the same name by Milton. Penderecki himself characterized the work as a Sacra Rappresentazione (sacred representation) rather than an opera. He wrote the opera on commission for the 1976 US Bicentennial celebrations. The first performance was given on 29 November 1978, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The same production was given at La Scala, Milan on 31 January 1979.

Pagliacci (Italian pronunciation: , meaning "Clowns") is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It is the only Leoncavallo opera that is still widely staged. It is often staged by opera companies as a double bill with Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni, known as Cav and Pag.

Owen Wingrave is an opera (originally written for a televised performance) in two acts with music by Benjamin Britten, his Opus 85. The libretto is by Myfanwy Piper, after a short story by Henry James.

Otello (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello.

Otello (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887.

Oscar is an American opera in two acts, with music by composer Theodore Morrison and a libretto by Morrison and English opera director John Cox. The opera, Morrison's first, is based on the life of Oscar Wilde, focused on his trial and imprisonment in Reading Gaol. It was a co-commission and co-production between The Santa Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia (formerly the Opera Company of Philadelphia). This work received its world premiere at The Santa Fe Opera on 27 July 2013. Opera Philadelphia first presented the revised version of the opera on 6 February 2015.

Orphée aux enfers, whose title translates from the French as Orpheus in the Underworld, is an opéra bouffe (a form of operetta), or opéra féerie in its revised version. Its score was composed by Jacques Offenbach to a French text written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux.

Orlando (RV 728), usually known in modern times as Orlando furioso (Italian pronunciation: ), is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to an Italian libretto by Grazio Braccioli, based on Ludovico Ariosto's epic poemOrlando Furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando). The first performance of the opera was at the Teatro San Angelo, Venice, in November 1727. It is to be distinguished from an earlier Vivaldi opera of 1714, Orlando furioso, set to much the same libretto, once thought to be a revival of a 1713 opera by Giovanni Alberto Ristori but now considered by Vivaldian musicologists to be a fully-fledged opera by Vivaldi himself.

Orfeo ed Euridice (French version: Orphée et Eurydice; English: Orpheus and Eurydice) is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762 in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. Orfeo ed Euridice is the first of Gluck's "reform" operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of opera seria with a "noble simplicity" in both the music and the drama.

L'Orfeo (SV 318) (Italian pronunciation: ), sometimes called La favola d'Orfeo , is a late Renaissance/early Baroque favola in musica, or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua. While the honour of the first ever opera goes to Jacopo Peri's Dafne, and the earliest surviving opera is Euridice (also by Peri), L'Orfeo has the honour of being the earliest surviving opera that is still regularly performed today.

Oresteia (Орестея in Cyrillic) is an opera in three parts, eight tableaux, with music by Sergei Taneyev, composed during 1887-1894. The composer titled this work, his only opera, a "musical trilogy." The Russian libretto was adapted by A.A. Wenkstern from the The Oresteia of Aeschylus. The opera was premiered on October 29  1895 at the Mariinsky Theatre. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that soon after the premiere, the Mariinsky management made cuts to the opera, which angered Taneyev.

Operation Orfeo is a conceptual opera in three movements with music by Bo Holten, based on the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. The libretto is written by Ib Michael and the concept is created by Kirsten Dehlholm of Hotel Pro Forma. It was premiered in 1993.

The Old Maid and the Thief is a radio opera in one act by Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. The work uses an English language libretto by the composer which tells a twisted tale of morals and evil womanly power. Menotti writes in the libretto "The devil couldn't do what a woman can- Make a thief out of an honest man."

Oedipus the King (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Τύραννος IPA: , Oidipous Tyrannos), also known by its Latin title Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed about 429 BC. Of his three Theban Plays that deal with Oedipus, Oedipus the King was the second to be written. However, in terms of the chronology of events that the plays describe, it comes first, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone.

Œdipe is an opera in four acts by the Romanian composer George Enescu, based on the mythological tale of Oedipus, and set to a French libretto by Edmond Fleg. Enescu had the idea to compose an Oedipus-inspired opera even before finding a libretto and began to sketch music for it in 1910. The first-draft libretto from Fleg arrived in 1913. Enesco completed the music in 1922 and the orchestration in 1931. The opera received its world premiere in Paris on 13 March 1936. The first German production was in Berlin in 1996, in a production that subsequently traveled to the Vienna State Opera. The United States premiere was in 2005 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

L'oca del Cairo is an opera buffa in three acts, K. 422, begun by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in July 1783 but abandoned in October. The complete three act libretto by Giovanni Battista Varesco remains. Mozart completed seven of the ten numbers of the first act, plus some recitative; his music amounts to about 45 minutes.

Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio is an opera in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an existing libretto by Antonio Piazza probably called Rocester.

The Nose (Russian: Нос, 'Nos'), is Shostakovich's first opera, a satirical work completed in 1928 based on Nikolai Gogol's story of the same name (1836).

Norma (Italian: ) is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infantic

Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with choreography by Mark Morris. When Sellars approached Adams with the idea for the opera in 1985, Adams was initially reluctant, but eventually decided that the work could be a study in how myths come to be, and accepted the project. Goodman's libretto was the result of considerable research into Nixon's visit, though she disregarded most sources published after 1972.

Nina, o sia La pazza per amore (Nina, or the Girl Driven Mad by Love) is an opera, described as a commedia in prosa ed in verso per musica, in two acts by Giovanni Paisiello to an Italian libretto by Giambattista (also Giovanni Battista) Lorenzi after Giuseppe Carpani's translation of Benoît-Joseph Marsollier's Nina, ou La folle par amour, set by Nicolas Dalayrac in 1786.

Nicholas and Alexandra is a 1971 biographical film which partly tells the story of the last ruling Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra.

The New Moon is the name of an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Mandel, and Laurence Schwab. The show was the third and last in a string of Broadway hits for Romberg (after The Student Prince (1924) and The Desert Song (1926)) written in the style of Viennese operetta. It spawned a number of revivals and two film versions, and it is still played by light opera companies. The piece turned out to be "Broadway's last hit operetta", as World War II and the Golden Age of musicals approached.

An operetta in three acts by Johann Strauss II. Its libretto was by F. Zell and Richard Genee based on Le Chateau Trompette by Eugene Cormon and Richard Genee. The farcical, romantic story involves several cases of mistaken identity.

Nabucco (Italian pronunciation: ; short for Nabucodonosor ~, English Nebuchadnezzar) is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on biblical stories from the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Daniel and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue, although Antonio Cortese's ballet adaptation of the play (with its necessary simplifications), given at La Scala in 1836, was a more important source for Solera than the play itself. Under its original name of Nabucodonosor, the opera was first performed at La Scala in Milan on 9 March 1842.

Mozart and Salieri (Моцарт и Сальери, Motsart i Salyeri) is a one-act opera in two scenes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, written in 1897 to a Russian libretto taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's 1830 verse drama of the same name.

Motezuma is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi with an Italian libretto by Alvise Giusti. The libretto is very loosely based on the life of the Aztec ruler Montezuma who died in 1520. The first performance was given in the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice on 14 November 1733. (In earlier reference books the opera is referred to as Montezuma, but since the reappearance of the original manuscript this has been corrected to Motezuma.) The music was thought to have been lost, but was discovered in 2002 in the archive of the music library of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Its first fully staged performance in modern times took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 21 September 2005.

Montag aus Licht (Monday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, three acts, and a farewell, and was the third of seven to be composed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche (Light: The Seven Days of the Week). The libretto was written by the composer.

Mlada (Russian: Млада, the name of a main character) is an opera-ballet in four acts, composed between 1889 and 1890 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to a libretto by Viktor Krylov that was originally employed for an aborted project of the same name from 1872.

Mlada (Russian: Млада, the name of a main character) was a project conceived in 1870 by Stepan Gedeonov (ru) (1816–1878), director of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres, originally envisioned as a ballet to be composed by Aleksandr Serov with choreography by Marius Petipa.

Mittwoch aus Licht (Wednesday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, four scenes, and a farewell. It was the sixth of seven to be composed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche (Light: The Seven Days of the Week), and the last to be staged. It was written between 1995 and 1997, and first staged in 2012.

Miss Julie is an opera by Ned Rorem to an English libretto by Kenward Elmslie, based on the play, Miss Julie by Swedish playwright August Strindberg on the subject of the intersection of social class and illicit sexual relations in late 19th-century Sweden.

The Miserly Knight, also The Covetous Knight, (Russian: Скупой рыцарь, Skupój rýtsar’) is a Russian opera in one act with music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, with the libretto based on Alexander Pushkin's drama of the same name. It contains roles for five male singers, but no females. The composer decided essentially to set the Pushkin text as written, and had Feodor Chaliapin in mind for the role of the Baron, however, Chaliapin withdrew from the production over artistic differences.

The Mines of Sulphur is an opera in three acts by Richard Rodney Bennett, his first full-length opera, composed in 1963. Beverley Cross wrote the libretto, based on his play Scarlet Ribbons, at the suggestion of Colin Graham, who eventually directed the first production in 1965. The opera is dedicated to Benjamin Britten, whose Aldeburgh Festival had originally commissioned the opera.

Mignon is an opéra comique (or opera in its second version) in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's "The Dead" (Dubliners) and Willa Cather's The Professor's House. Thomas's goddaughter Mignon Nevada was named after the main character.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 64, is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was premiered on 11 June 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival, conducted by the composer and with set and costume designs by Carl Toms. Stylistically, the work is typical of Britten, with a highly individual sound-world – not strikingly dissonant or atonal, but replete with subtly atmospheric harmonies and tone painting. The role of Oberon was composed for the countertenor Alfred Deller. Atypically for Britten, the opera did not include a leading role for his partner Pears, who instead was given the comic drag role of Flute/Thisbe.

The Merry Wives of Windsor (in German: Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare.

The Merry Widow (German: Die lustige Witwe) is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play, L'attaché d'ambassade (The Embassy Attaché) by Henri Meilhac.

The Merchant Kalashnikov (Russian: Купец Калашников, Kupets Kalashnikov) is a three-act opera by Anton Rubinstein, with a libretto by Nikolai Kulikov. It is based on The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov by Mikhail Lermontov.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (German: ; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg") is a music drama (or opera) in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas commonly performed, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, today's home of the Bavarian State Opera, in Munich, on 21 June 1868. The conductor at the premiere was Hans von Bülow.

Mefistofele (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera with music by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito (there are several completed operas for which he was librettist only). The opera was given its premiere on 5 March 1868 at La Scala, Milan under the baton of the composer, despite his lack of experience and skill as a conductor.

The Medium is a short (one-hour-long) two-act dramatic opera with words and music by Gian Carlo Menotti. Commissioned by Columbia University, its first performance was there on 8 May 1946. The opera's first professional production was presented on a double bill with Menotti's The Telephone at the Heckscher Theater, New York City, February 18–20, 1947 by the Ballet Society. The Broadway production took place on May 1, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater with the same cast.

Médée is a tragédie mise en musique in five acts and a prologue by Marc-Antoine Charpentier to a French libretto by Thomas Corneille. It was premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on December 4, 1693. Médée is the only opera Charpentier wrote for the Académie Royale de Musique. The opera was well reviewed by contemporary critics and commentators, including Sébastien de Brossard and Évrard Titon du Tillet, as well as Louis XIV whose brother attended several performances, as did his son; however, the opera only ran until March 15, 1694, although it was later revived at Lille.

Médée is a French language opéra-comique by Luigi Cherubini. The libretto by François-Benoît Hoffmann (Nicolas Étienne Framéry) was based on Euripides' tragedy of Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée.

Mazeppa, properly Mazepa (Russian: Мазепа), is an opera in three acts (six scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Victor Burenin and is based on Pushkin's poem Poltava.

May Night (Russian: Майская ночь, Majskaja noch) is a comic opera in three acts, four scenes, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov from a libretto by the composer and is based on Nikolai Gogol's story May Night, or the Drowned Maiden, from his collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.

Mavra is a one-act opera buffa composed by Igor Stravinsky, and one of the earliest works of Stravinsky's 'neo-classical' period. The libretto of the opera, by Boris Kochno, is based on Aleksandr Pushkin's The Little House in Kolomna. Mavra is about 25 minutes long, and features two arias, a duet, and a quartet performed by its cast of four characters. The opera has been characterised as both an homage to Russian writers, and a satire of bourgeois manners and the Romeo and Juliet subgenre of romance. Philip Truman has also described the music as satirising 19th-century comic opera. The dedication on the score is to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage) is an opera in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick. It was first performed on 7 February 1792 at the Imperial Hofburg Theatre in Vienna in the presence of Emperor Leopold II.

Mathis der Maler (Matthias the Painter) is an opera by Paul Hindemith. The opera's genesis lay in Hindemith's interest in the Protestant Reformation. The work's protagonist, Matthias Grünewald, was an actual historical figure who flourished in that era, and whose art, in particular the Isenheim Altarpiece, inspired many creative figures in the early 20th century, including Joris-Karl Huysmans's novel Là-bas.

Mateo Falcone (Матео Фальконе in Cyrillic; Mateo Fal'kone in transliteration) is a one-act opera composed by César Cui during 1906-1907. (Actually, Cui designated the genre of this work as "dramatic scene.") The libretto was adapted by the composer from Prosper Merimée's like-named story from 1829 and Vasily Zhukovsky's verse rendering thereof. It was premiered on 14 December 1907 (Old Style), at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (the work was given along with the composer's early one-act comic opera, The Mandarin's Son). The premiere production of Mateo was a failure; the work never became part of the standard operatic repertoire in Russia, and seems never to have been performed again.

Maskarade (Masquerade) is an opera in three acts by Carl Nielsen to a Danish libretto by Vilhelm Andersen, based on the comedy by Ludvig Holberg. It was first performed on 11 November 1906 at Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen. Maskarade has enjoyed enduring popularity in Denmark where it is considered to be the country's national opera.

I masnadieri (The Bandits or The Robbers) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, based on Die Räuber by Friedrich von Schiller. As Verdi became more successful in Italy, he began to receive offers from other opera houses outside the country. The London impresario Benjamin Lumley had presented Ernani in 1845 and, as a result of its success, commissioned an opera from the composer which became I masnadieri. It was given its first performance at Her Majesty's Theatre on 22 July 1847 with Verdi conducting the first two performances.

The Mask of Orpheus is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. It was premiered in London at the English National Opera on 21 May 1986 to great critical acclaim. A recorded version conducted by Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins has also received good reviews. The work is around three hours long.

Les Martyrs (The Martyrs) is a four-act grand opera by Gaetano Donizetti set to a French libretto by Eugene Scribe. The libretto was based on one written by Salvadore Cammarano for an original Italian version known as Poliuto, which was not performed until after the composer's death. Pierre Corneille's play Polyeucte written in 1641–42, the story of which reflected the life of the early Christian martyr Saint Polyeuctus, is the original source for both versions.

Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or The Market at Richmond) is a romantic comic opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro, pronounced ), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (first performed in 1784).

The Marriage Market (Leányvásár) is an operetta by Hungarian composer Victor Jacobi. It was premiered on 14 November 1911 at the Király Színház (King Theater) in Budapest and was the composer's first significant success not only in Hungary, but also abroad. The libretto was by Miklós Bródy and Ferenc Martos.

Marilyn, subtitled Scenes from the '50s in two acts, is an opera by Lorenzo Ferrero set to a bilingual libretto by Floriana Bossi and the composer. The text consists of a collection of fragments taken from original political, social and cultural documents and has two different linguistic levels: English for the sung parts (entrusted exclusively to four characters), and the language of the country in which the performance takes place for the spoken parts.

Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart) is a tragic opera (tragedia lirica), in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti, to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on Andrea Maffei's translation of Friedrich Schiller's 1800 play Maria Stuart.

Maria Golovin is an English language opera in three acts by Gian Carlo Menotti. It is through-composed and centers on a romantic encounter between a blind recluse named Donato and the title character, a married woman living in a European country a few years after a recent war. The work was commissioned by Peter Herman Adler of the NBC Opera Theatre.

María de Buenos Aires is a tango opera (tango operita) with music by Ástor Piazzolla and libretto by Horacio Ferrer which premiered at the Sala Planeta in Buenos Aires in May 1968.

Margaret Garner is an opera in two acts composed by Richard Danielpour to an English-language libretto by Toni Morrison. The opera is loosely based on actual events in the life of runaway slave Margaret Garner. A co-commission by the Michigan Opera Theatre, Cincinnati Opera and Opera Philadelphia, it premièred on 7 May 2005 at the Detroit Opera House in Detroit, Michigan with Denyce Graves in the title role.

Mare nostro (Our Sea) is a comic opera in two acts composed by Lorenzo Ferrero to an Italian-language libretto by Marco Ravasini, loosely based on Vittorio Alfieri's 1804 comedy L'antidoto (o Tre veleni rimesta, avrai l'antidoto). The work was completed in 1985 and first performed at the Teatro Comunale, Alessandria on 11 September 1985.

Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost and should not be confused with Manon, an 1884 opera by Jules Massenet based on the same novel.

Manon (French pronunciation: ​) is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 19 January 1884.

The Mandarin's Son (Сын мандарина in Cyrillic; Syn mandarina in transliteration) is comic opera in one act by César Cui, composed in 1859. The libretto, which includes spoken dialogue, was written by V.A. Krylov.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris. It was first performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, on 27 October 1986.

Les mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias) is an opéra bouffe by Francis Poulenc, in a prologue and two acts based on the play of the same title by Guillaume Apollinaire. The opera was written in 1945 and first performed in 1947.

The Makropulos Affair (or The Makropoulos Case, or The Makropulos Secret or, literally, The Makropulos Thing; Czech Věc Makropulos) is a three-act opera by Czech composer Leoš Janáček. The libretto, based on a play of the same name by Karel Čapek, was written by the composer between 1923 and 1925.

The Maid of Orleans (Russian: Орлеанская дева, Orleanskaja deva) is an opera in 4 acts, 6 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was composed during 1878–1879 to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on several sources: Friedrich Schiller’s The Maid of Orleans as translated by Vasily Zhukovsky; Jules Barbier’s Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc); Auguste Mermet’s libretto for his own opera; and Henri Wallon’s biography of Joan of Arc. Dedicated to conductor Eduard Nápravník, this work represents the composer's closest approach to French grand opera, albeit in the Russian language, notably with its inclusion of a ballet in Act 2.

Mademoiselle Fifi (Мадмуазель Фифи in Cyrillic; Madmuazel' Fifi in transliteration) is an opera in one act, composed by César Cui during 1902-1903. The libretto was adapted by the composer from the short story Mademoiselle Fifi (1882) by Guy de Maupassant and the dramatized version Mlle Fifi (1896) by Oscar Méténier.

Madama Butterfly (IPA: ; Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. The opera is based in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based partially on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and partially on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti. Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as a one-act play, Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved on to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.

Macbeth (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Written for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, it was Verdi's tenth opera and first given on 14 March 1847. Macbeth was the first Shakespeare play that Verdi adapted for the operatic stage. Almost twenty years later, Macbeth was revised and expanded in a French version and given in Paris on 19 April 1865.

Lulu (composed from 1929–1935, premièred incomplete in 1937) is an opera in three acts by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's two Lulu plays, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1904). Berg died before completing the third and final act, and in the following decades, the opera was typically performed incomplete. Since its publication in 1979, however, the Friedrich Cerha orchestration has become popular. Theodor W. Adorno wrote "The opera Lulu is one of those works that reveals the extent of its quality the longer and more deeply one immerses oneself in it."

Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) by the German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller.

Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramatic opera in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play Lucrezia Borgia by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan.

Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico (tragic opera) in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor.

The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33, also known by its French language title L'amour des trois oranges (Russian: Любовь к трём апельсинам, Lyubov' k tryom apel'sinam), is a satirical opera by Sergei Prokofiev. Its French libretto was based on the Italian play L'amore delle tre melarance by Carlo Gozzi. The opera premiered at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, on 30 December 1921.

Louis Riel is an opera in three acts by the Canadian composer Harry Somers.

Louise is an opera (roman musical) in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists.

Loreley is a three-act azione romantica opera by Alfredo Catalani, composed to a libretto by Angelo Zanardini, Giuseppe Depanis, Carlo D'Ormeville and others.

Lord Byron is an opera in three acts by Virgil Thomson to an original English libretto by Jack Larson, inspired by the historical character Lord Byron. This was Thomson's third and final opera. He wrote it on commission from the Ford Foundation for the Metropolitan Opera (Met), but the Met never produced the opera. The first performance was at Lincoln Center, New York City on April 20, 1972, by the music department of the Juilliard School with John Houseman as stage director, Gerhard Samuel as the conductor and Alvin Ailey as the choreographer. A performance of a revised version, by the composer, took place in 1985 with the New York Opera Repertory Theater.

I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade) is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, which was "very much a child of its age; a grand historical novel with a patriotic slant". Its first performance was given at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 11 February 1843. Verdi dedicated the score to Maria Luigia, the Habsburg Duchess of Parma, who died a few weeks after the premiere.

Lohengrin, WWV 75, is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself inspired by the epic of Garin le Loherain. It is part of the Knight of the Swan tradition.

Little Red Riding Hood (Красная шапочка in Russian; transliterated Krasnaja šapočka, literally meaning little red cap) is an opera-fairytale for children in two acts (three tableaux) by César Cui, composed in 1911. The libretto was written by Marina Stanislavona Pol', based on Charles Perrault's fairytale of the same name.

The Little Prince, subtitled A Magical Opera, is an opera in two acts by Rachel Portman to an English libretto by Nicholas Wright, based on the 1943 book of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first performed in at the Houston Grand Opera on 31 May 2003.

Life is a Dream is a three-act opera with music by Lewis Spratlan from an English-language libretto by James Maraniss which was based on the 1635 play Life Is a Dream by Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It was written in the 1970s, but did not receive a complete stage premiere until 2010.

La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (En. "The Liberation of Ruggiero from the island of Alcina") is a comic opera in four scenes by Francesca Caccini, first performed 3 February 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence, with a libretto by Ferdinando Saracinelli, based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. It is the first opera written by a woman, and was long considered to be the first Italian opera to be performed outside of Italy. It was performed to celebrate a visit from Prince Władysław of Poland during Carnival 1625, and it had a revival in Warsaw in 1628. The work was commissioned by Regent Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, wife of Cosimo II de' Medici, for whom Caccini worked. Ruggiero was printed under the protection of Maria Magdalena in 1625, only five years after the first printed opera in Italy. It is the only opera by Francesca Caccini to survive.

The Letter is an opera by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Terry Teachout. It was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and was premiered there on 25 July 2009.

Leo, the Royal Cadet is a light opera with music by Oscar Ferdinand Telgmann. The libretto was by George Frederick Cameron. It was composed in Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 1889. The work centres on Nellie's love for Leo, a cadet at the Royal Military College of Canada who becomes a hero serving during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Empire. The operetta focussed on typical character types, events and concerns of Telgmann and Cameron's time and place.

The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (Russian: Сказание о невидимом граде Китеже и деве Февронии, Skazaniye o nevidimom grade Kitezhe i deve Fevronii) is an opera in four acts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto was written by Vladimir Belsky, and is based on a combination of two Russian legends: that of St. Fevroniya of Murom, and the city of Kitezh, which became invisible when attacked by the Tatars. The opera was completed in 1905, and the premiere performance took place at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, on February 7, 1907.

The Land of Smiles (German: Das Land des Lächelns) is a romantic operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár. The German language libretto was by Ludwig Herzer (de) and Fritz Löhner-Beda. The performance time is about 100 minutes.

L’Amour de loin (Love from Afar) is the first opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho from a five act French libretto by Amin Maalouf. The opera was given its world premiere performance on 15 August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival and its US premiere on 31 July 2002 at the Santa Fe Opera.

Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille.

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Russian: Леди Макбет Мценского уезда, Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo Uyezda) is an opera in four acts by Dmitri Shostakovich, his Op.29. The libretto was written by Alexander Preys and the composer, and is based on the novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is sometimes referred to informally as Lady Macbeth when there is no confusion with Verdi's Macbeth. It was first performed on 22 January 1934 at the Leningrad Maly Operny, and on the 24 January 1934 in Moscow. Shostakovich dedicated the opera to his first wife, the physicist Nina Varzar.

Krútňava (abroad staged as The Whirlpool or Katrena after the main female role) is an opera in six scenes by Eugen Suchoň written in the 1940s to a libretto by the composer and Štefan Hoza, based on a novella, Za vyšným mlynom (Beyond the Upper Mill) by Milo Urban. The opera was premiered at the Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, on 10 December 1949.

The Knot Garden is the third opera by composer Michael Tippett for which he wrote the original English libretto. The work had its first performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 2 December 1970 conducted by Sir Colin Davis and produced by Sir Peter Hall. There is a recording with the original cast.

An opera in three acts by Karol Szymanowski to a Polish libretto by the composer himself and Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, the composer's cousin.

Khovanshchina (Russian: Хованщина, Hovánščina, sometimes rendered The Khovansky Affair; since the ending -ščina is pejorative) is an opera (subtitled a 'national music drama') in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. Khovanskygate, the name given to a 2014 production in Birmingham, UK, is a modern equivalent. The work was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto based on historical sources. The opera was unfinished and unperformed when the composer died in 1881.

Káťa Kabanová (also known in various spellings including Katia, Katja, Katya, and Kabanowa) is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by Vincenc Červinka, based on The Storm, a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The opera was also largely inspired by Janáček's love for Kamila Stösslová. This is often considered his first "mature" opera, despite the fact that he was 67 when it was premiered. Káťa Kabanová is a clear response to Janáček's feelings for Kamila, and the work is dedicated to her. The first performance was at the National Theatre (Národní divadlo v Brně) in Brno on 23 November 1921.

Kaiserin Josephine is an operetta in 8 scenes by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman. The German libretto was by Paul Knepler and Géza Herczeg. It premiered in Zurich, at the Stadt Theater, on 18 January 1936.

Julie is a one-act chamber opera written by the Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans who is composer-in-residence of the Brussels opera house, La Monnaie. It is based on August Strindberg's 1888 play, Miss Julie, with a libretto by Luc Bondy and Marie Louise-Bischofberger written in German.

La Juive (French pronunciation: ​) (The Jewess) is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on 23 February 1835.

Juha is a three-act opera by Aarre Merikanto, with a Finnish libretto by Aino Ackté based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Juhani Aho. Although completed by 1922, it was only finally staged at the music college in Lahti on 28 October 1963. The story is a drama of a love triangle: the older husband Juha, his young wife Marja, and her seducer the merchant Shemeikka. Set in the 1880s in Kainuu in northern Finland, the human tragedy is based around the harsh realities of a farming community and the clash of their lifestyle with the more worldly nomadic Karelians, represented by Shemeikka.

Judith (Russian: Юдифь, Yudíf – stress on second syllable), is an opera in five acts, composed by Alexander Serov during 1861–1863. Derived from renditions of the story of Judith from the Old Testament Apocrypha, the Russian libretto, though credited to the composer, has a complicated history (see below). The premiere took place in 1863 in Saint Petersburg. This stage debut, supplemented with his next opera Rogneda, made Serov the most important Russian opera composer of the 1860s.

I gioielli della Madonna (English: The Jewels of the Madonna) is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event.

Jérusalem is a grand opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was to be an adaptation and partial translation of the composer's original 1843 Italian opera, I Lombardi alla prima crociata. It was the one opera which he regarded as the most suitable for being translated into French and, taking Scribe's advice, Verdi agreed that a French libretto was to be prepared by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, who had written the libretto for Donizetti's most successful French opera, La favorite. The opera received its premiere performance at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on 26 November 1847.

Jenůfa  (Czech) (help·info) (Její pastorkyňa, "Her Stepdaughter" in Czech) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904. It was written between 1896 and 1902, and counts among the first operas written in prose.

The Jacobin (Jakobín in Czech) is an opera in three acts by Antonín Dvořák to an original Czech libretto by Marie Červinková-Riegrová. Červinková-Riegrová took some of the story's characters from the story by Alois Jirásek, "At the Ducal Court", but devised her own plot about them. The first performance was at the National Theatre, Prague, 1889. Červinková-Riegrová revised the libretto, with Dvořák's permission, in 1894, notably in the last act. Dvořák himself revised the music in 1897 (the revised premiere was on 19 June 1898, under Adolf Čech).

Ivan the Fool (Иванушка-дурачёк in Cyrillic; Ivanuška-duračok in transliteration) is an opera-fairytale for children in three tableaux, by César Cui, composed in 1913. The libretto was written by Nadezhda Nikolaevna Dolomanova, using Russian folk tales. (It is not derived from Leo Tolstoy's story of the same name.)

L'italiana in Algeri (Italian pronunciation: ; English: The Italian Girl in Algiers) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.

L'île de Tulipatan (The Island of Tulipatan) is an opéra bouffe (a form of operetta), in one act by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru.

Iris (Italian: ) is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni to an original Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It premiered on 22 November 1898 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. The story is set in Japan during legendary times.

Iphigénie en Tauride (Iphigenia in Tauris) is a 1779 opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard.

Iolanta, Op. 69, (Russian: Иоланта) is a lyric opera in one act by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It was the last opera he composed. The libretto was written by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, and is based on the Danish play Kong Renés Datter (King René's Daughter) by Henrik Hertz, a romanticised account of the life of Yolande de Bar. In the original Danish play, the spelling of the princess's name was "Iolanthe", later adopted for the otherwise unrelated Gilbert and Sullivan operetta of that name. The play was translated by Fyodor Miller and adapted by Vladimir Zotov. The opera received its premiere on 18 December 1892 in Saint Petersburg.

L'incoronazione di Poppea (SV 308, The Coronation of Poppaea) is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times.

Il Guarany (The Guarany) is an opera ballo composed by Antônio Carlos Gomes, based on the novel O Guarani by José de Alencar. Its libretto, in Italian rather than Gomes' native Portuguese, was written by Antonio Scalvini and Carlo D'Ormeville. The work is notable as the first Brazilian opera to gain acclaim outside Brazil. Maria Alice Volpe has analysed the historical subtext of the Indianismo movement behind Il Guarany.

Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante (Italian for Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante; usually referred to simply as Idomeneo, K. 366) is an Italian language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it might have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Residenz Theatre in Munich, Germany.

Les Huguenots (French pronunciation: ​) is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. In five acts, to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, it premiered in Paris in 1836.

Hugh the Drover (or Love in the Stocks) is an opera in two acts by Ralph Vaughan Williams to an original English libretto by Harold Child. According to Michael Kennedy, the composer took first inspiration for the opera from this question to Bruce Richmond, editor of The Times Literary Supplement, around 1909–1910:

Die Hochzeit (The Wedding, WWV 31) is an unfinished opera by Richard Wagner which predates his completed works in the genre. Wagner completed the libretto, then started composing the music in the second half of 1832 when he was just nineteen. He abandoned the project after his sister Rosalie, who was the main supporter and the spokesman of the family, expressed her disgust at the story. Wagner destroyed the libretto.

L'heure espagnole is a one-act opera, described as a comédie musicale, with music by Maurice Ravel to a French libretto by Franc-Nohain, based on his play ('comédie-bouffe') of the same name first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon on 28 October 1904. The title can be translated literally as "The Spanish Hour", but the word "heure" more importantly means "time" – "Spanish Time", with the connotation "How They Keep Time in Spain". Ravel had been at work on the music as early as 1907.

Die Herzogin von Chicago (The Duchess of Chicago) is an operetta in two acts, a prologue, and an epilogue. The music was composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán with a libretto by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grünwald. It premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien, on April 5, 1928 and played for 372 performances. The work was presented in out-of-town tryouts in Newark, New Jersey and Springfield, Massachusetts by the Shuberts in 1929, but it did not make it to Broadway. The piece was forgotten until 1997, when the Lubo Opera Company performed it in concert in New York, after which Light Opera Works of Illinois performed the work in 1998 in a fully staged version with a new translation by Philip Kraus and Gregory Opelka. In 1999, Richard Bonynge made a recording of the work, which revived international interest in it.

Die heilige Ente: ein Spiel mit Göttern und Menschen (German: The sacred duck: a play with Gods and men) is an opera with a prelude and three acts by the composer Hans Gál (his Op. 15), to a libretto by Karl Michael Leventzow and Leo Feld. Written in 1920–21, it was premiered in Düsseldorf on 29 April 1923 under the baton of Georg Szell.

The Haughty Princess (A rátartós királykisasszony) is an operetta by the Hungarian composer Victor Jacobi. As his first operetta it was premiered on December 17, 1904 in Budapest. The libretto is by Jenő Heltai, who rewrote a folk tale by Holger Drachmann.

Háry János is a Hungarian folk opera (that is, a spoken play with songs, in the manner of a Singspiel) in four acts by Zoltán Kodály to a Hungarian libretto by Béla Paulini (1881–1945) and Zsolt Harsányi, based on the comic epic The Veteran (Az obsitos) by János Garay. The first performance was at the Royal Hungarian Opera House, Budapest, 1926. The subtitle of the piece is Háry János kalandozásai Nagyabonytul a Burgváráig – János Háry: his Adventures from Nagyabony (Great Abony) to the Vienna Burg. The UK stage premiere was at the Buxton Festival in 1982 conducted by Anthony Hose with Alan Opie in the title role.

Hansel and Gretel (German: Hänsel und Gretel) is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who described it as a Märchenoper (fairy tale opera). The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel". It is much admired for its folk music-inspired themes, one of the most famous being the "Abendsegen" ("Evening Benediction") from act 2.

The Handmaid's Tale is an opera composed by the Danish composer Poul Ruders, to a libretto by Paul Bentley based on the novel of the same name written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

Christ Recrucified (Ο Χριστός Ξανασταυρώνεται 'Christ is Recrucified') is a 1954 novel by Nikos Kazantzakis.

The Greater Good, or the Passion of Boule de Suif is an opera in two acts by contemporary American composer Stephen Hartke, with an English libretto by the Philip Littell, based on the short story Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant. It was commissioned by the Glimmerglass Opera, and premiered on 22 July 2006 at Glimmerglass, in Cooperstown, New York.

Le grand macabre (1974–77, revised version 1996) is György Ligeti's only opera. The opera has two acts and its libretto – based on the 1934 play, La balade du grand macabre, by Michel De Ghelderode – was written by Ligeti in collaboration with Michael Meschke, director of the Stockholm puppet theatre. The original libretto was written in German, as Der grosse Makaber, but for the first production was translated into Swedish by Meschke under its current title (Griffiths and Searby 2003). The opera has been performed also in English, French, Italian, Hungarian and Danish. Only a few notes need be changed to perform the opera in any of these languages.

Goyescas is an opera in one act and three tableaux, written in 1915 by the Spanish composer Enrique Granados. Granados composed the opera to a Spanish libretto by Fernando Periquet y Zuaznabar with melodies taken from his 1911 piano suite, which was also called Goyescas. The opera was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 28, 1916.

Götterdämmerung ( pronunciation (help·info); Twilight of the Gods), WWV 86D, is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or The Ring for short). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the Ring.

The Little Golden Cockerel (Russian: Золотой петушок, Zolotoy petushok) is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Its libretto, by Vladimir Belsky, derives from Alexander Pushkin's 1834 poem The Fairy Tale of the Little Golden Cockerel, which in turn is based on two chapters of Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving. The opera was completed in 1907 and premiered in 1909 in Moscow, after the composer's death. Outside Russia it has often been performed in French as Le coq d'or.

Gloriana is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Giovanna d'Arco (Joan of Arc) is an operatic dramma lirico with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, who had prepared the libretti for both Nabucco and I Lombardi. It is Verdi's seventh opera.

Un giorno di regno, ossia il finto Stanislao (A One-Day Reign, or The Pretend Stanislaus, but often translated into English as King for a Day) is an operatic melodramma giocoso in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto written in 1818 by Felice Romani. Originally written for the Bohemian composer Adalbert Gyrowetz the libretto was based on the play Le faux Stanislas written by the Frenchman Alexandre Vincent Pineu-Duval in 1808. Un giorno was given its premiere performance at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan on 5 September 1840.

La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito (as Tobia Gorrio), based on Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835. (This is the same source as Gaetano Rossi had used for his libretto for Mercadante's Il giuramento in 1837).

Gilgameš (Serbian Cyrillic: Гилгамеш) is an opera in three acts by Rudolf Brucci. The libretto by Arsenije Arsa Milošević is based on the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. It premiered on November 2, 1986 Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad.

Gianni Schicchi (Italian pronunciation: ) is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico (The Triptych)—three one-act operas with contrasting themes, originally written to be presented together. Although it continues to be performed with one or both of the other trittico operas, Gianni Schicchi is now more frequently staged either alone or with short operas by other composers. The aria "O mio babbino caro" is one of Puccini's best known, and one of the most popular arias in opera.

The Ghosts of Versailles is an opera in two acts, with music by John Corigliano to an English libretto by William M. Hoffman. The Metropolitan Opera had commissioned the work from Corigliano in 1980 in celebration of its 100th anniversary, with the premiere scheduled for 1983. Corigliano and Hoffman took as the starting point for the opera the play La Mère coupable (The Guilty Mother) by Pierre Beaumarchais. They took seven years to complete the opera, past the initial deadline. The opera received its premiere on December 19, 1991, at the Metropolitan Opera, with the production directed by Colin Graham. The premiere run of seven performances was sold out. The original cast included Teresa Stratas, Håkan Hagegård, Renée Fleming, Graham Clark, Gino Quilico, and Marilyn Horne. The Metropolitan Opera revived the opera in the 1994/1995 season.

Genoveva, Op. 81 is an opera in four acts by Robert Schumann in the genre of German Romanticism with a libretto by Robert Reinick and the composer. The only opera Schumann ever wrote, it received its first performance on 25 June 1850 at the Stadttheater in Leipzig, with the composer conducting. It received only three performances during the premiere, and the negative criticism it received in the press played a decisive role in Schumann's decision to not write a second opera.

Geneviève de Brabant is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach, first performed in Paris in 1859. The plot is based on the medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant.

La gazza ladra (Italian pronunciation: , The Thieving Magpie) is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on La pie voleuse by Jean-Marie-Theodor Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez.

The Gambler (Russian: Игрок — Igrok in transliteration) is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Galileo Galilei is an opera based on excerpts from the life of Galileo Galilei which premiered in 2002 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, as well as subsequent presentations at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's New Wave Music Festival and London's Barbican Theatre. Music by Philip Glass, libretto and original direction by Mary Zimmerman and Arnold Weinstein. The piece is presented in one act consisting of ten scenes without break.

From the House of the Dead (Z mrtvého domu in Czech) is an opera by Leoš Janáček, in three acts. The libretto was translated and adapted by the composer from the novel by Dostoyevsky. It was the composer's last opera, premiered on 12 April 1930 in Brno, two years after his death.

Freitag aus Licht (Friday from Light), the main body of which is also titled Freitag-Versuchung (Friday Temptation), is the fifth to be composed of the seven operas that comprise Licht (Light), by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was the last of the operas to receive a staged production with the composer's involvement.

Der Freischütz, Op. 77, J. 277, (usually translated as The Marksman or The Freeshooter) is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin. It is considered the first important German Romantic opera, especially in its national identity and stark emotionality. The plot is based on the German folk legend of the Freischütz and many of its tunes were thought to be inspired by German folk music, but this is a common misconception. Its unearthly portrayal of the supernatural in the famous Wolf's Glen scene has been described as "the most expressive rendering of the gruesome that is to be found in a musical score".

Francesca da Rimini, Op. 4, is an opera in four acts, composed by Riccardo Zandonai, with libretto by Tito Ricordi, (1865–1933), after a play by Gabriele d'Annunzio. It was premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 19 February 1914, and is still staged occasionally.

Francesca da Rimini (Russian: Франческа да Римини), Op. 25 is an opera in a prologue, two tableaux and an epilogue by Sergei Rachmaninoff to a Russian libretto by Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is based on the story of Francesca da Rimini in the fifth canto of Dante's epic poem The Inferno (the first part of The Divine Comedy). The fifth canto is the part about the Second Circle of Hell (Lust). Rachmaninoff had composed the love duet for Francesca and Paolo in 1900, but did not resume work on the opera until 1904. The first performance was on 24 January (O.S. 11 January) 1906 at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, with the composer himself conducting, in a double-bill performance with another Rachmaninoff opera written contemporaneously, The Miserly Knight.

Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts. It was ground breaking for form, content, and its all-black cast, with singers directed by Eva Jessye, a prominent black choral director, and supported by her choir.

La forza del destino (Italian pronunciation: ; The Power of Fate, often translated The Force of Destiny) is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino (1835), by Ángel de Saavedra, 3rd Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed in the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre of Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 22 November  1862.

The Flying Dutchman (German: Der fliegende Holländer), WWV 63, is a German-language opera, with libretto and music by Richard Wagner.

Florencia en el Amazonas (English title: Florencia in the Amazon) is an opera in two acts composed by Daniel Catán. It contains elements of magical realism in the style of Gabriel García Márquez and uses a libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain, one of his pupils. The characters are inspired by García Márquez, but the story is not drawn directly from any of his works.

Le flibustier is a comédie lyrique (lyric comedy) in three acts, composed by César Cui during 1888–1889. Although the title can translate as The Pirate or The Buccaneer, this is no swashbuckling action-drama, but an idyllic domestic comedy of mistaken identity.

An operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner (de) and Richard Genee.

La fille du régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti, set to a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard. It was first performed on 11 February 1840 by the Paris Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse.

La figlia del mago (The Sorcerer's Daughter) is a children's opera in two acts by Lorenzo Ferrero set to an Italian-language libretto by Marco Ravasini. It was completed in 1981 and subtitled giocodramma melodioso, a wordplay on melodramma giocoso. The libretto, inspired by Mario Lavagetto's book Quei più modesti romanzi: il libretto nel melodramma di Verdi, is written in an imaginary language which emphasises the element of play. The music is a sequence of closed numbers "which spoof the most common operatic conventions." The aim of the opera is to show children how Italian opera functions. Alongside professional singers, children take mime roles.

Sergei Prokofiev's opera, The Fiery Angel (Russian: Огненный ангел, tr. Ognenny angel), could be considered one of the composer’s largest challenges. Writing, production, and location were all factors in the piece’s progress. The journey to completion was not truly over until after Prokofiev’s time when the piece was first presented in a full performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on November 25, 1955, and was first premiered at the Venice Festival in 1955.

Fidelio (originally named Leonore, oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe; English: Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love), Op. 72, is a German opera with spoken dialogue by Ludwig van Beethoven, his only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly and the work premiered at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. The next year Stephan von Breuning helped shorten the three acts to two. After further work on the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke a final version performed at the Kärntnertortheater on 23 May 1814. By convention both of the first two versions are referred to as Leonore.

Die Feen (German: , The Fairies) is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. The German libretto was written by the composer after Carlo Gozzi's La donna serpente. Die Feen was Wagner's first completed opera, but remained unperformed in his lifetime. It has never established itself firmly in the operatic repertory although it receives occasional performances, on stage or in concert, most often in Germany. The opera is available on CD; however, it has never been available on video. Additionally, the overture has been separately recorded.

Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play Fédora by Victorien Sardou. Along with Andrea Chénier and Siberia, it is one of the most notable works of Giordano.

Feast in Time of Plague (Пир во время чумыПир во время чумы in Cyrillic, Pir vo vremja čumy in transliteration) is an opera (literally labeled "dramatic scenes") in one act by César Cui, composed in 1900. The libretto was taken verbatim from A Feast in Time of Plague, one of the four Little Tragedies by Aleksandr Pushkin. The title has been translated also as Feast in the Time of the Plague and Feast during the Plague.

La favorite (The Favorite, sometimes referred to by its Italian title: La favorita) is a grand opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d'Arnaud. It premiered on 2 December 1840 at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris, France.

Faust is a grand opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859.

Zsuzsi kisasszony (literally "Miss Suzy", also known as Miss Springtime and Die Faschingsfee) is an operetta in 3 acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán. It premiered at the Vig theatre in Budapest on February 23, 1915. The Hungarian language libretto was by Martos and M. Bródy. As Miss Springtime, it opened, in heavily revised form, on Broadway in 1916.

La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini (it) and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Fanciulla followed Madama Butterfly, which was also based on a Belasco play. The opera has fewer of the show-stopping highlights that are characteristic of other Puccini works, but is admired for its impressive orchestration and for a score that is more melodically integrated than is typical of his previous work. Fanciulla displays influences from composers Claude Debussy and Richard Strauss, without being in any way imitative. Similarities between the libretto and the work of Richard Wagner have also been found, though some attribute this more to the original plot of the play, and have asserted that the opera remains quintessentially Italian.

Falstaff (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, parts 1 and 2. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan.

The Fair at Sorochyntsi (Russian: Сорочинская ярмарка, Sorochinskaya yarmarka, Sorochyntsi Fair) is a comic opera in three acts by Modest Mussorgsky, composed between 1874 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto, which is based on Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name, from his early (1832) collection of Ukrainian stories Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The opera remained unfinished and unperformed at Mussorgsky's death in 1881.

Facing Goya (2000) is an opera in four acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Victoria Hardie. It is an expansion of their one-act opera called Vital Statistics from 1987, dealing with such subjects as physiognomy and its practitioners, and also incorporates a musical motif from Nyman's art song, "The Kiss", inspired by a Paul Richards painting. Nyman also considers the work thematically tied to his other works, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The Ogre, and Gattaca, though he does not quote any of these musically, save a very brief passage of the latter. It was premièred at the Auditorio de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain on 3 August 2000. The revision with the cast heard on the album premiered at the Badisches Straatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany, on October 19, 2002. Vital Statistics has been withdrawn. The Santiago version included more material from Vital Statistics. The opera was most recently performed at the 2014 Spoleto Festival USA, located in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century (Czech: Výlety páně Broučkovy) is the complete title of Leoš Janáček’s fifth opera, based on two Svatopluk Čech novels, Pravý výlet pana Broučka do Měsíce (1888) (The True Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the Moon) and Nový epochální výlet pana Broučka, tentokráte do XV. století (1889) ('‘The Epoch-making Excursion of Mr. Brouček, this time to the 15th Century'’). The librettists for Part 1 were František Gellner, Viktor Dyk, František Sarafínský Procházka and others, while Part 2 was written by F. S. Procházka.

Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie, is an epic poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, written in English and published in 1847. The poem follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel, set during the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians.

Euridice (also Erudice or Eurydice) is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. It is the earliest surviving opera, Peri's earlier Dafne being lost. (Caccini wrote his own "Euridice" even as he supplied music to Peri's opera, published this version before Peri's was performed, in 1600, and got it staged two years later.) The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses which recount the story of the legendary musician Orpheus and his wife Euridice.

Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, (Russian: Евгений Онегин, Yevgény Onégin) is an opera ("lyrical scenes") in 3 acts (7 scenes), composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto, organised by the composer Konstantin Shilovsky, very closely follows certain passages in Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse, retaining much of his poetry. Shilovsky contributed M. Triquet's verses in Act 2, Scene 1, while Tchaikovsky wrote the words for Lensky's arioso in Act 1, Scene 1, and almost all of Prince Gremin's aria in Act 3, Scene 1.

L'étoile is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Emmanuel Chabrier with a libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo.

Esclarmonde (French pronunciation: ​) is an opéra (French: opéra romanesque) in four acts and eight tableaux, with prologue and epilogue, by Jules Massenet, to a French libretto by Alfred Blau and Louis Ferdinand de Gramont.

Ero s onoga svijeta (usually translated as Ero the Joker, literally Ero from the other world) is a comic opera in three acts by Jakov Gotovac, with a libretto by Milan Begović based on a folk tale. The genesis of the opera was at Vrlička Česma in the town of Vrlika, a hometown of Milan Begović.

Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail (K. 384; The Abduction from the Seraglio; also known as Il Seraglio) is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his beloved Konstanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. The work premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer conducting.

The English Cat (in German, Die englische Katze) is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise (The heartbreak of an English cat) by Honoré de Balzac. The opera was first performed in a German translation by the Stuttgart Opera at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen at the Schwetzingen Festival on 2 June 1983. The French premiere was at the Opéra-Comique, Paris in 1984. The first performance using the original English text was at Santa Fe on 13 July 1985. The UK premiere was at the Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, on 19 August 1987. A revised version was performed at Montepulciano in 1990 and this was given in London in 1991.

L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties (The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts) is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole. Written from 1917 to 1925, L'enfant et les sortilèges was first performed in Monte Carlo in 1925 under the baton of Victor de Sabata.

L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love, pronounced ) is a comic opera (melodramma giocoso) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). The opera premiered on 12 May 1832 at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan.

Elektra, Op. 58, is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal. It was first performed at the Dresden State Opera on January 25, 1909.

Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts (framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos), composed by Philip Glass and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards. The music was written "in the spring, summer and fall of 1975." Glass recounts the collaborative process: "I put on the piano and composed each section like a portrait of the drawing before me. The score was begun in the spring of 1975 and completed by the following November, and those drawings were before me all the time." The premiere took place on July 25, 1976, at the Avignon Festival in France. The opera contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs. It is Glass's first and longest opera score, taking approximately five hours in full performance without intermission; given the length, the audience is permitted to enter and leave as desired.

The Eighth Wonder is an opera by Alan John and with a libretto by Dennis Watkins. It was premiered at the Sydney Opera House on 14 October 1995 in the presence of the composer and librettist.

Edgar is an operatic dramma lirico in three acts (originally four acts) by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, freely based on the play in verse La Coupe et les lèvres (The Cup and the Lips) by Alfred de Musset.

I due Foscari (The Two Foscari) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on a historical play, The Two Foscari by Lord Byron.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen (Chinese: 中山逸仙; pinyin: Zhōngshān Yìxiān) is a 2011 Chinese-language western-style opera in three acts by the New York-based American composer Huang Ruo who was born in China and is a graduate of Oberlin College's Conservatory as well as the Juilliard School of Music. The libretto was written by established playwright and translator Candace Mui-ngam Chong. It is her first opera libretto, and she has been a recent collaborator with playwright David Henry Hwang in what has been described as "the bi-lingual Broadway hit, Chinglish.

Donnerstag aus Licht (Thursday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, three acts, and a farewell, and was the first of seven to be composed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche (Light: The Seven Days of the Week). It was written between 1977 and 1980, with a libretto by the composer.

Le donne curiose (English: The Inquisitive Women) is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to a text by Luigi Sugana after Carlo Goldoni's play.

Don Sanche, ou Le château de l'amour (English: Don Sanche, or The Castle of Love), S.1, is an opera in one act composed in 1824-25 by Franz Liszt, with French libretto by Théaulon and de Rancé, based on a story by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. For 30 years it was believed to be lost until it was rediscovered in 1903. The first modern performance took place in 1977, 74 years after its rediscovery.

Don Rodrigo is an opera in three acts by Alberto Ginastera, the composer's first opera, to an original Spanish libretto by Alejandro Casona. Ginastera composed the opera on commission from the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first performance was at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Argentina on 24 July 1964 with Carlo Cossutta in the title role. The production was directed by Jorge Petraglia and conducted by Bruno Bartoletti.

Don Pasquale (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti with an Italian libretto completed largely by Giovanni Ruffini as well as the composer. It was based on a libretto by Angelo Anelli for Stefano Pavesi's opera Ser Marcantonio written in 1810 but, on the published libretto, the author appears as "M.A."

Don Giovanni (Italian pronunciation: ; K. 527; complete title: Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni, literally The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni) is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga (now called the Estates Theatre) on October 29, 1787. Da Ponte's libretto was billed, like many of its time, as dramma giocoso, a term that denotes a mixing of serious and comic action. Mozart entered the work into his catalogue as an opera buffa. Although sometimes classified as comic, it blends comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements.

Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (Don Carlos, Infante of Spain) by Friedrich Schiller. In addition, it has been noted by David Kimball that the Fontainebleau scene and auto da fé "were the most substantial of several incidents borrowed from a contemporary play on Philip II by Eugène Cormon".

Dolores Claiborne is a 1992 psychological thriller novel by Stephen King. The novel is narrated by the title character. Atypically for a King novel, it has no chapters, double-spacing between paragraphs, or other section breaks; thus the text is a single continuous narrative which reads like the transcription of a spoken monologue. It was the best selling novel of 1992 in the United States.

Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb (the "Trinity" test) was being prepared. In 2007, a documentary was made about the creation of the opera, titled Wonders Are Many.

Djamileh is an opéra comique in one act by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Louis Gallet, based on an oriental tale, Namouna, by Alfred de Musset.

Dienstag aus Licht (Tuesday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting and two acts, with a farewell, and was the fourth of seven to be completed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche (Light: The Seven Days of the Week). It was begun in 1977 and completed from 1988 to 1991, to a libretto by the composer.

Dido and Aeneas (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest's girls' school in London by the end of 1689. Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early at 1684. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her. A monumental work in Baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas is remembered as one of Purcell's foremost theatrical works. It was also Purcell's first opera, as well as his only all-sung dramatic work. One of the earliest English operas, it owes much to John Blow's Venus and Adonis, both in structure and in overall effect. The influence of Cavalli's opera Didone is also apparent.

Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) is a 1956 French-language opera in twelve scenes and several orchestral interludes, grouped into three acts, by Francis Poulenc. It is the composer's second opera; he wrote the libretto after a scheme by novelist Georges Bernanos. Its première took place (in an Italian translation) in January 1957 at La Scala in Milan; premières in Paris, France in French and in the United States (in English translation) in San Francisco followed the same year.

The Devil Take Her is an opera in one act by Arthur Benjamin to an original English libretto by Alan Collard and John Gordon. First performance: Royal College of Music, London, 1931. It is not part of the standard operatic repertoire.

The Devil and Kate, Op. 112, B.201, (Čert a Káča in Czech) is an opera in three acts by Antonín Dvořák to a Czech libretto by Adolf Wenig. It is based on a farce by Josef Kajetán Tyl, and the story also had been treated in the Fairy Tales of Božena Němcová. The first performance of the opera was at the National Theatre, Prague, on 23 November 1899, under Adolf Čech.

Destiny (also known as Fate, Czech: Osud) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer and Fedora Bartošová. Janáček began the work in 1903 and completed it in 1907. The inspiration for the opera came from a visit by Janáček in the summer of 1903, after the death of his daughter Olga, to the spa at Luhačovice. There, Janáček met Kamila Urválková, who had been the subject of an opera by Ludvík Čelanský, Kamila, where she felt that Čelanský had falsely depicted her personality. After learning that Janáček was a composer, Urválková persuaded Janáček to write another opera to counteract Čelanský's portrait of her.

The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of Arabia aiding native guerrillas. Many tales romanticizing Arab North Africa were in vogue, including Beau Geste and The Son of the Sheik.

The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of wheelchair-bound 69-year-old Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer.

Death in Venice is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, his last. The opera is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Myfanwy Piper wrote the English libretto. It was first performed at Snape Maltings, near Aldeburgh, England, on 16 June 1973.

Dead Man Walking is the first opera by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally. Based on the book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, the work premiered on October 7, 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House, produced by the San Francisco Opera.

La fille du régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti, set to a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard. It was first performed on 11 February 1840 by the Paris Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse.

It was first performed by the Academie de musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris on 19 November 1739. It received 26 performances, mainly because of the support from Rameau's followers in the dispute between the styles of Rameau and Lully.

Daphne, Op. 82, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss, subtitled "Bucolic Tragedy in One Act". The German libretto was by Joseph Gregor. The opera is based loosely on the mythological figure Daphne from Ovid's Metamorphoses and includes elements taken from The Bacchae by Euripides. The opera premiered at the Semperoper in Dresden on 15 October 1938, originally intended as a double bill with Strauss' Friedenstag, but as the scale of Daphne grew, that idea was abandoned. The conductor of the first performance was Karl Böhm, to whom the opera was dedicated.

Dantons Tod (German for Danton's Death) is an opera by composer Gottfried von Einem to a libretto by Boris Blacher and Gottfried von Einem after Georg Büchner's 1835 play of the same name. Its first performance took place in Salzburg, August 6, 1947. It was revised in 1955.

The Dangerous Liaisons is an opera in two acts and eight scenes, with music by Conrad Susa to an English libretto by Philip Littell. It is based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The opera received its first performance by the San Francisco Opera on 10 September 1994, with stage direction by Colin Graham and Donald Runnicles as the conductor. The world-premiere cast included Thomas Hampson as Valmont, Frederica von Stade as Merteuil, David Hobson as Chevalier de Danceny, Renée Fleming as Tourvel and Mary Mills as Cécile de Volanges. The opera was performed at Washington Opera in March 1998.

La damnation de Faust (English: The Damnation of Faust), Op. 24 is a work for four solo voices, full seven-part chorus, large children's chorus and orchestra by the French composer Hector Berlioz. He called it a "légende dramatique" (dramatic legend). It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 6 December 1846.

Dalibor is a Czech opera in three acts by Bedřich Smetana. The libretto was written in German by Josef Wenzig, and translated into Czech by Ervin Špindler. It was first performed at the New Town Theatre in Prague on 16 May 1868. The opera received criticism at the time for being overly influenced by German opera, including that of Richard Wagner.

Dafne is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini survives complete; the mostly-lost music was completed by Jacopo Peri, but at least two of the six surviving fragments are by Jacopo Corsi. Dafne was first performed during Carnival of 1598 (1597 old style) at the Palazzo Corsi.

Cyrano de Bergerac is a four-act opera with music by Franco Alfano, and libretto by Henri Caïn, based on Edmond Rostand's drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The opera received its first performance in Rome on 22 January 1936, conducted by Tullio Serafin, with Maria Caniglia and José Luccioni. The first performance in Paris was on 29 May 1936 at the Opéra-Comique.

Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance (Op. 71) is the first of three Church Parables by Benjamin Britten. The work is based on the Japanese noh play Sumidagawa (Sumida River) of Juro Motomasa (1395–1431), which Britten saw during a visit to Japan and the Far East in early 1956. Beyond the noh source dramatic material, Britten incorporated elements of noh treatment of theatrical time into this composition.

La Curandera is an opera composed by Robert Xavier Rodriguez to a primarily English libretto by Mary Medrick. It was commissioned and premiered by Opera Colorado in April 2006.

The Cunning Little Vixen (Czech: Příhody lišky Bystroušky, lit. Adventures of the vixen known as Sharp-Ears, and, until the 1970s, generally referred to in English as Adventures of Vixen Sharp-Ears) is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella (daily comic) by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny. The opera incorporates Moravian folk music and rhythms. Described as a comic opera, it has nonetheless been noted to contain a serious theme. Interpretations of the work, however, remain more varied, ranging from children's entertainment to a tragedy.

Die Csárdásfürstin (The Csárdás Princess; translated into English as The Riviera Girl and The Gipsy Princess) is an operetta in 3 acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán, libretto by Leo Stein and Bela Jenbach (de). It premiered in Vienna at the Johann Strauß-Theater (de) on 17 November 1915. Numerous film versions and recordings have been made. The operetta is widely beloved in Hungary, Austria, Germany, all of Europe and particularly in former Soviet Union, where it had been adapted into a popular film. It is arguably Kálmán's most successful work.

The Crucible is an English language opera written by Robert Ward based on the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It won both the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. The libretto was lightly adapted from Miller's text by Bernard Stambler.

Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (pronounced ; Thus Do They All, or The School for Lovers), K. 588, is an Italian-language opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed on 26 January 1790, at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni.

Der Corregidor is a comic opera by Hugo Wolf. The German libretto was written by Rosa Mayreder-Obermayer, based on the short novel El sombrero de tres picos (The three-cornered Hat) by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón.

The Tales of Hoffmann (French: Les contes d'Hoffmann) is an opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Hoffmann is the protagonist in the opera.

La Conquista (also known as Montezuma) is an opera in two acts by Lorenzo Ferrero set to a trilingual libretto by the composer and Frances Karttunen, based on a concept by Alessandro Baricco. It depicts the major episodes of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521 and the subsequent destruction of the Aztec civilization. The libretto (English-Spanish-Nahuatl) is a blend of historical and literary sources drawn from transcriptions of indigenous and European literature, both kept, with some exceptions, in their original languages. The texts are taken from The Truthful History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Book XII of the Florentine Codex, the works of Juan Boscán Almogáver, Bernardino de Sahagún, Lope de Vega, Heinrich Heine, and from Aztec prayers, songs and poems as collected in Cantares Mexicanos and Romances de los señores de Nueva España.

Comedy on the Bridge (Veselohra na mostě in Czech) is an opera (originally a radio opera) in one act by Bohuslav Martinů to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the comedy by Václav Kliment Klicpera and composed in 1935 in Polička.

Cold Mountain is the first opera written by Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon and set to an English libretto by Gene Scheer based on Charles Frazier's award-winning novel of the same name, published in 1997, which won the 1997 National Book Award and was made into a film of the same title in 2003.

La clemenza di Tito (English: The Clemency of Titus), K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio. It was started after the bulk of The Magic Flute, the last opera that Mozart worked on, was already written (Mozart completed The Magic Flute after the Prague premiere of Tito). The work premiered on 6 September 1791 at the Estates Theatre in Prague.

Le Cid is an opera in four acts and ten tableaux by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, Édouard Blau and Adolphe d'Ennery. It is based on the play of the same name by Pierre Corneille.

Chopin is a four-act opera by Giacomo Orefice (1865–1922) to a libretto by Angiolo Orvieto, premiered in Milan in 1901.

Charlotte Corday is an opera in three acts by Lorenzo Ferrero to an Italian-language libretto by Giuseppe Di Leva, written on commission from the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma for the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution which was commemorated in 1989.

Charles VI is an 1843 French grand opera in five acts with music composed by Fromental Halevy and a libretto by Casimir Delavigne and his brother Germain Delavigne.

La Cenicienta (Cinderella) is an opera in three acts composed by Chilean artist Jorge Peña Hen (1928–1973), to a libretto by the Chilean author, Oscar Jara Azocar (1910–1988).

La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault. The opera was first performed in Rome's Teatro Valle on 25 January 1817.

The Cave is a multimedia opera in three acts by Steve Reich to an English libretto by his wife Beryl Korot. It was first performed in 1993 in Vienna by the Steve Reich Ensemble, conducted by Paul Hillier. The title "The Cave" refers to The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where Abraham and Sarah (and several other major religious figures) are buried.

Cavalleria rusticana (pronounced ; Italian for "Rustic Chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play and short story written by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called Cav/Pag double-bill with Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo.

Casanova's Homecoming is an opera in three acts by Dominick Argento to an English libretto by the composer, based in part on Giacomo Casanova's memoirs. It was first performed by the Minnesota Opera in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985.

Carmen (French pronunciation: ​; Spanish: ) is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, on 3 March 1875, and was not well received, largely due to its breaking of convention and controversial main characters, which shocked and scandalized its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, and therefore was unaware of its outstanding success in Vienna later that year, or that it would win enduring international acclaim within the next ten years. Carmen has since become one of the most popular and frequently-performed operas in the classical canon; the "Habanera" from act 1 and the "Toreador Song" from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias.

The Captain's Daughter (Капитанская дочка in Cyrillic; Kapitanskaja dočka in transliteration) is an opera in four acts (eight tableaux) by César Cui, composed during 1907-1909. The libretto was adapted by the composer from Alexander Pushkin's novel of the same name.

La canterina (The Songstress or The Diva), Hob. XXVIII/2, is a short, two-act opera buffa by Joseph Haydn, the first one he wrote for Prince Esterhazy. Based on the intermezzo from the third act of Niccolò Piccinni's opera L'Origille (1760), it lasts about 50 minutes. It was written in 1766, and was premiered in the fall of that year.

Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to Voltaire's novel. The primary lyricist was the poet Richard Wilbur. Other contributors to the text were John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Stephen Sondheim, John Mauceri, John Wells, and Bernstein himself. Maurice Peress and Hershy Kay contributed orchestrations. Although unsuccessful at its premiere, Candide has now overcome the unenthusiastic reaction of early audiences and critics and achieved enormous popularity. It is very popular among major music schools as a student show because of the quality of its music and the opportunities it offers to student singers.

"Ça ira" (French: "it'll be fine") is an emblematic song of the French Revolution, first heard in May 1790. It underwent several changes in wording, all of which used the title words as part of the refrain.

Brundibár is a children's opera by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, originally performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. The name comes from a Czech colloquialism for a bumblebee.

La vida breve (Spanish Life is Short or The Brief Life) is an opera in two acts and four scenes by Manuel de Falla to an original Spanish libretto by Carlos Fernández-Shaw. Local (Andalusian) dialect is used. It was written between August 1904 and March 1905, but not produced until 1913. The first performance was given (in a French translation by Paul Millet) at the Casino Municipal in Nice on 1 April 1913. Paris and Madrid performances followed, later in 1913 and in 1914 respectively. Claude Debussy played a major role in influencing Falla to transform it from the number opera it was at its Nice premiere to an opera with a more continuous musical texture and more mature orchestration. This revision was first heard at the Paris premiere at the Opéra-Comique in December 1913, and is the standard version.

The Bravest Hussar (Legvitézebb Huszár) is an operetta by Hungarian composer Victor Jacobi. As his second operetta was not considered to be a big success. It premiered on 30 December 1905 in Magyar Színház (Hungarian Theater) in Budapest. The libretto is from Ferenc Martos.

The Brandenburgers in Bohemia (Czech: Braniboři v Čechách) is a three-act opera, the first by Bedřich Smetana. The Czech libretto was written by Karel Sabina, and is based on events from Czech history. The work was composed in the years 1862–1863. Smetana and Sabina wrote the opera at a time of great Czech patriotism, with the pending opening of a new theatre for production of Czech operas in Prague.

Boris Godunov (Russian: Борис Годунов, Borís Godunóv) is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar (1598 to 1605) during the Time of Troubles, and his nemesis, the False Dmitriy (reigned 1605 to 1606). The Russian-language libretto was written by the composer, and is based on the drama Boris Godunov by Aleksandr Pushkin, and, in the Revised Version of 1872, on Nikolay Karamzin's History of the Russian State.

An opera in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It was the last of Rameau's five tragedies en musique. The libretto, attributed to Louis de Cahusac (died 1759), is loosely based on the Greek legend of Abaris the Hyperborean and includes Masonic elements.

Bomarzo is an opera in two acts by Alberto Ginastera, his Opus 34, to a Spanish libretto by Manuel Mujica Laínez, based on his 1962 novel about the 16th-century Italian eccentric Pier Francesco Orsini. The opera had its world premiere at the Opera Society of Washington, Washington D.C., on 19 May 1967. The same production was first given at New York City Opera on 14 March 1968. The work had been scheduled for its first performance in Argentina on 4 August 1967 at the Teatro Colón, but the Argentine president, Juan Carlos Onganía, had banned the production, objecting to the sexual content of the story. The first performance in Argentina did not occur until 1972, with the composer in attendance. The first UK production was at English National Opera on 3 November 1976, in an English translation by Lionel Salter.

La bohème is an Italian opera in four acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. The opera received a successful premiere at the Teatro la Fenice, Venice on 6 May 1897.

La bohème (French pronunciation: ​, Italian: ) is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. The world premiere performance of La bohème was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini; its U.S. premiere took place the next year, 1897, in Los Angeles. Since then, La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide.

Bluebeard's Castle (Hungarian: A kékszakállú herceg vára; literally: The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle) is a one-act opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer, and is written in Hungarian, based on the French literary tale "La Barbe bleue" by Charles Perrault. The opera lasts only a little over an hour and there are only two singing characters onstage: Bluebeard (Kékszakállú), and his new wife Judith (Judit); the two have just eloped and Judith is coming home to Bluebeard's castle for the first time.

Blue Monday (Opera à la Afro-American) was the original name of a one-act "jazz opera" by George Gershwin, renamed 135th Street during a later production. The English libretto was written by Buddy DeSylva. Though a short piece, with a running time of between twenty and thirty minutes, Blue Monday is often considered the blueprint to many of Gershwin's later works, and is often considered to be the "first piece of symphonic jazz" in that it was the first significant attempt to fuse forms of classical music such as opera with American popular music, with the opera largely influenced by Jazz and the African-American culture of Harlem.

Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts, with book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The story, set in 19th century and early 20th century England and Austria-Hungary, centres on a young woman's elopement with her music teacher. The songs from the score include "The Call of Life", "If You Could Only Come with Me", "I'll See You Again", "Dear Little Café", "If Love Were All", "Ladies of the Town", "Tokay", "Zigeuner" and "Green Carnation".

Billy Budd, Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, it was first performed at the Royal Opera House, London, on 1 December 1951; it was later revised as a two-act opera with a prologue and an epilogue.

Betrothal in a Monastery (original Russian title Обручение в монастыре), Op. 86 is an opera by Sergei Prokofiev, his sixth with an opus number. The libretto, in Russian, was by the composer and Mira Mendelson (his companion in later life), after Richard Brinsley Sheridan's ballad opera libretto for Thomas Linley the younger's The Duenna.

Bertha is an opera in one act, with music by Ned Rorem to an English libretto by Kenneth Koch, an original work parodying Shakespeare's histories. Rorem wrote the work originally at the request of the Metropolitan Opera (Met) Studio in the 1960s, intended as an opera for children. However, the Met studio rejected the work. The work was premiered at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on November 25, 1973 with Beverly Wolff in the title role.

Benvenuto Cellini is an opera semiseria in two acts with music by Hector Berlioz and libretto by Léon de Wailly (fr) and Henri Auguste Barbier. It was the first of Berlioz's operas, premiered in 1838. The story is inspired by the memoirs of the Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, although the elements of the plot are largely fictional. The opera is technically very challenging and rarely performed. However, the overture to the opera sometimes features in symphony orchestra programs, as does the concert overture Le carnaval romain which Berlioz composed from material in the opera.

Il Bellerofonte is an 18th-century Italian opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It conforms to the serious type (opera seria) that was typically set in the distant past. The libretto, based on the Greek legend of Bellerophon, was written by Giuseppe Bonecchi. The work was dedicated to King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 20 January 1767, the birthday of his father, King Charles III of Spain. The cast featured two stellar singers of the time, Caterina Gabrielli and Anton Raaff, in the leading roles. The opera was only the composer's second one, and the first that permitted him the opportunity to write music for first-rate vocal artists. The production was highly successful, indeed responsible for a meteoric rise in his reputation as an operatic composer. From the time of the premiere of Bellerofonte until his death in 1781, Mysliveček succeeded in having more new opere serie brought into production than any other composer in Europe. During the same time span, he also had more new operas staged at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples than any other composer.

La belle Hélène (French pronunciation: ​, The Beautiful Helen), is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The operetta parodies the story of Helen's elopement with Paris, which set off the Trojan War.

La belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty) is an opera in three acts by Michele Carafa to a French libretto by François-Antonine-Eugène de Planard after the tale by Charles Perrault.

Belisario (Belisarius) is a tragedia lirica (tragic opera) in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Luigi Marchionni's adaptation of Eduard von Schenk's play, Belisarius, first staged in Munich in 1820 and then (in Italian) in Naples in 1826. The plot is loosely based on the life of the famous general Belisarius of the 6th century Byzantine Empire.

The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.

Béatrice et Bénédict (Beatrice and Benedick) is an opéra comique in two acts by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz wrote the French libretto himself, based closely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Beatrix Cenci is an opera in two acts by Alberto Ginastera to a Spanish libretto by the composer and William Shand, based on the historical family of Beatrice Cenci, the Chroniques italiennes by Stendhal, and The Cenci by Percy Shelley. The first performance was on 10 September 1971 by the Opera Society of Washington in Washington, D.C., as part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The stage direction was by Gerald Freedman, with choreography by Joyce Trisler, and the conductor was Julius Rudel. New York City Opera first staged the work on 1 April 1973. The European premiere of Beatrix Cenci took place at the Geneva Opera in September 2000.

The Bartered Bride (Czech: Prodaná nevěsta, The Sold Fiancée) is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The work is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866 in a two-act format with spoken dialogue. Set in a country village and with realistic characters, it tells the story of how, after a late surprise revelation, true love prevails over the combined efforts of ambitious parents and a scheming marriage broker. The opera was not immediately successful, and was revised and extended in the following four years. In its final version, premiered in 1870, it gained rapid popularity and eventually became a worldwide success.

The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution (Italian: Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione) took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome.

Der Barbier von Bagdad (The Barber of Baghdad) is a comic opera in two acts by Peter Cornelius to a German libretto by the composer, based on The Tale of the Tailor and The Barber’s Stories of his Six Brothers in One Thousand and One Nights. The first of three operas by Cornelius, the piece was first performed at the Hoftheater in Weimar on 15 December 1858.

Bang! is an opera for young people by John Rutter to an English libretto by David Richard Grant. The opera was written for the Trinity Boys Choir, and the ensemble premiered the work at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon under conductor David Squibb on 14 March 1975.

Bandanna is an English language opera in a prologue and two acts by Daron Hagen, first performed by the The University of Texas at Austin opera theater in Austin, February 25, 1999. The libretto is by Irish poet Paul Muldoon based on a treatment co-written with the composer. The story of the Venetian Moor is recast and updated to 1968 by combining elements of the original Venetian story, William Shakespeare's Othello, Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello, and new, original characters and situations. The opera's unifying concept is the idea of the borderlines between emotional, metaphysical and moral states. The commission itself is notable for two reasons: first, it stipulated that there be no strings (other than the customary string basses associated with symphonic band) in the pit, second, it was financed by a consortium of over one hundred college bands from across the United States, all members of the College Band Directors National Association.

Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. However, Somma's libretto was itself based on the five act libretto which playwright Eugène Scribe had written for Daniel Auber's 1833 opera, Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué.

Die Bajadere is an operetta in 3 acts composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman. The libretto was written by J. Brammer and A. Grunwald. The work premiered in Vienna on 23 December 1921. With the English-language title of The Yankee Princess, the work received its first New York City performances in October 1922.

Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough (1870–1924), which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. Following the extraordinary success of their stage musical The Wizard of Oz, which was produced in New York beginning in January 1903, producer Fred R. Hamlin and director Julian P. Mitchell hoped to create more family musicals. MacDonough had helped Mitchell with revisions to the Oz libretto by L. Frank Baum. Mitchell and MacDonough persuaded Victor Herbert to join the production. Babes in Toyland features some of Herbert's most famous songs – among them "Toyland", "March of the Toys", "Go To Sleep, Slumber Deep", and "I Can't Do the Sum". The theme song "Toyland", and the most famous instrumental piece from the operetta, "March of the Toys", occasionally show up on Christmas compilations.

Atys (Attis) is a tragédie en musique, a type of early French opera, in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Ovid's Fasti. It was premiered on 10 January 1676 by Lully's Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera) for the royal court at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and was first performed in public in April at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris. Although this opera was met with indifference by the Parisian audience, it became known as "the king's opera" because of King Louis XIV's love for it. It was repeated for Louis XIV in 1678 and 1682.

Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the 1809 play Attila, König der Hunnen (Attila, King of the Huns) by Zacharias Werner. The opera received its first performance at La Fenice in Venice on 17 March 1846.

Atmen gibt das Leben (Breathing Gives Life), is a choral opera with orchestra by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1974 and expanded in 1976–77. It is Number 39 in the catalogue of the composer's works, and lasts about 50 minutes in performance.

Ascanio in Alba, K. 111, is a pastoral opera in two parts (Festa teatrale in due atti) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Parini. It was commissioned by the Empress Maria Theresa.

Les arts florissants (H. 487) is a short chamber opera (also described by the composer as idylle en musique) in five scenes by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

For the novel, see Artamène.

Aroldo (Italian pronunciation: ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on and adapted from their earlier 1850 collaboration, Stiffelio. The first performance was given in the Teatro Nuovo Comunale in Rimini on 16 August 1857.

Armide is an opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The libretto by Philippe Quinault is based on Torquato Tasso's poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered). The work is in the form of a tragédie en musique, a genre invented by Lully and Quinault.

Armide is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, set to a libretto by Philippe Quinault. Gluck's fifth production for the Parisian stage and the composer's own favourite among his works, it was first performed on 23 September 1777 by the Académie Royale de Musique in the second Salle du Palais-Royal in Paris.

Armida is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto (dramma per musica) by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso.

Armida is an opera by Antonín Dvořák in four acts, set to a libretto by Jaroslav Vrchlický that was originally based on Torquato Tasso's epic La Gerusalemme liberata. Dvořák's opera was first performed at Prague's National Theatre on 25 March 1904; the score was published as opus 115 in 1941.

L'arlesiana is an opera in three acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Leopoldo Marenco. It was originally written in four acts, and was first performed on 27 November 1897 at the Teatro Lirico di Milano in Milan. It was revised as a three-act opera in 1898, and a prelude was added in 1937.

Arizona Lady is an operetta in two acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán. The libretto was written by Alfred Grünwald and Gustav Beer. It premiered, as a broadcast in Munich on 1 January 1954, and on stage in Bern, at the Stadttheater, on 14 February 1954. Left unfinished at the time of Emmerich Kalman's death, it had been completed by his son, Charles Kalman. It was given its American premiere, in a new English translation by Gerald Frantzen and Hersh Glagov, by Chicago Folks Operetta in July 2010, at Stage 773 in Chicago, Illinois.

An opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which in turn was adapted from Canti 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.

Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne on Naxos), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. Music critic and author Matt Dobkin wrote that, while Ariadne auf Naxos is "not as well loved as Der Rosenkavalier or as important as Salome, it is nevertheless staged all the time, thanks in large part to sopranos' attraction to the vocal and dramatic grandeur of the title role and to the compelling spitfire Zerbinetta character."

Aquarius is an opera for eight sopranos, eight baritones, and orchestra by Karel Goeyvaerts. It was begun in 1983 and completed in April 1992, to a libretto by the composer in eight languages, incorporating lines from the Revelation of St. John.

Apollo et Hyacinthus is an opera, K. 38, written in 1767 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was 11 years old at the time. It is Mozart's first true opera (when one considers that Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots is simply a sacred drama). It is in three acts. As is suggested by the name, the opera is based upon Greek mythology as told by Roman poet Ovid in his masterwork Metamorphoses. Interpreting this work, Rufinus Widl wrote the libretto in Latin.

Antigonae (Antigone), written by Carl Orff, was first presented on 9 August 1949 under the direction of Ferenc Fricsay in the Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, Austria. Antigonae is in Orff's words a "musical setting" for the Greek tragedy by Sophocles of the same name. However, it functions as an opera.

Anna Nicole is an English opera in 2 acts and 16 scenes, with music by Mark-Anthony Turnage to an English libretto by Richard Thomas. Based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith, the opera received its première on 17 February 2011 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, directed by Richard Jones. A recording of the opera was broadcast on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer on 25 March 2011. The broadcast drew in 67,700 viewers. The opera received its first London revival at Covent Garden in September 2014.

Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both recounting the life of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII.

Aniara is an opera in two acts by Karl-Birger Blomdahl, with a libretto by Erik Lindegren based on the poem Aniara by Harry Martinson, that was premiered on 31 May 1959. Subtitle of poem and opera is the ambiguous phrase En revy om människan i tid och rum: "A revue/review about Man in Time and Space".

Angelo (Анджело in Cyrillic; Andželo in transliteration) is an opera in four acts by César Cui, composed during 1871-1875, with a libretto by Viktor Burenin based on Victor Hugo's prose play, Angelo, Tyrant of Padua. This same play formed the basis of Saverio Mercadante's Il giuramento of 1837, Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda, which premiered in the same year as Cui's opera (1876), and Alfred Bruneau's Angelo, tyran de Padoue of 1928.

L'ange de Nisida (The Angel of Nisida) is an opera semiseria in four acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, from a libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz.

Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by the composer Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It is based loosely on the life of the French poet, André Chénier (1762-1794), who was executed during the French Revolution. The character Carlo Gérard is partly based on Jean-Lambert Tallien, a leader of the Revolution.

L'amico Fritz (Italian: ) is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni, premiered in 1891 from a libretto by P. Suardon (Nicola Daspuro) (with additions by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti), based on the French novel L'ami Fritz by Émile Erckmann and Pierre-Alexandre Chatrian.

Amelia is an opera in two acts by Daron Hagen to a libretto in English by Gardner McFall based on a story by Stephen Wadsworth. It had its world premiere at the Seattle Opera on May 8, 2010.

Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast live on television from that venue as the debut production of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. It was the first opera specifically composed for television in America.

Amadis is an opera in three acts with prologue by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Jules Claretie based on the Spanish knight-errantry romance Amadis de Gaula, originally of Portuguese origin, by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.

Amadis or Amadis de Gaule (Amadis of Gaul) is a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Nicolas Herberay des Essarts' adaptation of Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula. It was premiered by the Paris Opera at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal sometime from January 15 to 18, 1684. There was a later production at Versailles without scenery or machines in 1685.

Alzira is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, based on the play Alzire, ou les Américains by Voltaire.

Alexandre bis (Alexander Twice in English; Dvakrát Alexandr in Czech) is a surrealist comic opera in one act by Bohuslav Martinů, (H. 255), composed in 1937 to an original libretto written in French by André Wurmser.

Alessandro nelle Indie (En. Alexander in India) is an opera seria in two acts by Giovanni Pacini, with libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on Alessandro nell'Indie by Pietro Metastasio. It was premiered in Naples, Italy at the Teatro di San Carlo on 29 September 1824, and had a total of 38 performances in its first season.

An opera composed by George Frideric Handel in 1726 for the Royal Academy of Music. Paolo Rolli's libretto is based on the story of Ortensio Mauro's La superbia d'Alessandro.

An opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after during his travels in Italy.

Alceste, ou Le triomphe d’Alcide is a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The French-language libretto is by Philippe Quinault, after Euripides’ Alcestis. It was first performed on 19 January 1674 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal by the Paris Opera.

It was written as incidental music to a lost play by Tobias Smollett, which was rehearsed at Covent Garden Theatre but never performed.

Alceste, Wq. 37 (the later French version is Wq. 44), is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto (in Italian) was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place on 26 December 1767 at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.

Alahor in Granata is an opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti to an anonymous Italian libretto (indicated only with the initials "M.A.") after Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian's text Gonzalve de Cordoue, ou Granade reconquise (1793). However, it seems that the original basis of the libretto goes back to one by Felice Romani written for Meyerbeer in 1821, which in turn can be traced back through another iteration to begin with the De Florian version.

Akhnaten is an opera in three acts based on the life and religious convictions of the pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), written by the American minimalist composer Philip Glass in 1983. Akhnaten had its world premiere on March 24, 1984 at the Stuttgart State Opera, under the German title Echnaton. Paul Esswood sang the title role, German director Achim Freyer staged the opera in an abstract style with highly ritualistic movements. The American premiere was held on October 12, 1984 at the Houston Grand Opera, where Glass's opera The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 also premiered.

Ainadamar (which means "Fountain of Tears" in Arabic) is the first opera by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. The Spanish-language libretto is by American playwright David Henry Hwang. It premiered in Tanglewood on 10 August 2003 and, after major revisions, the new version given its premiere at The Santa Fe Opera on 30 July 2005.

Aida (Italian: ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in Egypt, it was commissioned by and first performed at Cairo's Khedivial Opera House on 24 December 1871; Giovanni Bottesini conducted after Verdi himself withdrew. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.

Die ägyptische Helena (The Egyptian Helen), Op. 75, is an opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It premiered at the Dresden Semperoper on 6 June 1928. Strauss had written the title role with Maria Jeritza in mind but, creating quite a sensation at the time, the Dresden opera management refused to pay Jeritza's large fee and cast Elisabeth Rethberg instead as Helen of Troy. Jeritza eventually created the part in Vienna and New York.

Agrippina at the end of a three-year sojourn in Italy. It premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo on 26 December 1709. It proved an immediate success and an unprecedented series of 27 consecutive performances followed.

Ages Ago is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay that premiered on 22 November 1869 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It marked the beginning of a seven-year collaboration between Gilbert and Clay. The piece was a critical and popular success and was revived many times, including at St. George's Hall, London in 1870 and 1874, and in New York in 1880.

After All! is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by Frank Desprez and music by Alfred Cellier. It was first performed at the Savoy Theatre under the management of Richard D'Oyly Carte, along with H.M.S. Pinafore and another short piece, Cups and Saucers, from December 1878 to February 1880.

L'Africaine (The African Woman) is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama. (Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama.)

The Adventures of Pinocchio is a 2007 opera in two acts by Jonathan Dove with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton based on the novel by Carlo Collodi. It tells of the creation of the wooden puppet 'Pinocchio' and some of his adventures on the way to becoming a real boy.

Adriana Mater is the second opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, with a libretto in French by her frequent collaborator, Amin Maalouf. The National Opera of Paris and the Finnish National Opera jointly commissioned the opera. It received its world premiere at the Opéra Bastille on 3 April 2006 in a production directed by Peter Sellars. The production was dedicated to Gerard Mortier, Artistic Director of the National Opera of Paris.

Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. It was first performed on 6 November 1902 in Milan.

See also: George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas

Adelson e Salvini (Adelson and Salvini) is a three-act opera semi-seria composed by Vincenzo Bellini from a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. The opera was based on the 1772 novel Épreuves du Sentiment by François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud, and it draws on a previously performed French play of 1803 by Prospère Delamare.

Adelia, o La figlia dell'arciere (Adelia, or The Archer's Daughter) is an opera in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto was written partly by Felice Romani (Acts 1 and 2) and by Girolamo Maria Marini (Act 3), a part-time poet who had achieved notability the previous year with Otto Nicolai's Il templario. The opera premiered at the Teatro Apollo, Rome on 11 February 1841.

Adelaide di Borgogna, ossia Ottone, re d'Italia (Adelaide of Burgundy, or Otto, King of Italy) is a two-act opera composed by Gioachino Rossini (with contributions by Michele Carafa) to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt. It was premièred at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on 27 December 1817.

Adelaide or l'Adelaide is an opera by Antonio Sartorio to an Italian libretto by Pietro Dolfin. It was premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Salvatore in 1672. An exact date is not known, although the libretto is dedicated February 19, 1672.

Actéon (Actaeon) is a Pastorale in the form of a miniature tragédie en musique in six scenes by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Opus H 481, based on a Greek myth.

Acis et Galatée (Acis and Galatea) is an opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Unlike most of his operas, which are designated tragédies en musique, Lully called this work a pastorale-héroïque, because it was on a pastoral theme and had only three acts (plus a prologue) compared to the usual five. Otherwise, there is little musically or dramatically to distinguish it from Lully's tragédies.

Handel later adapted the piece into a three-act serenata for the Italian opera troupe in London in 1732, which incorporated a number of songs (still in Italian) from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, his 1708 setting of the same story to different music.

Achille et Polyxène (Achilles and Polyxena) is a tragédie lyrique containing a prologue and five acts based on Virgil's Aeneid with a French libretto by Jean Galbert de Campistron. The opera's overture and first act were composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, who died from a conducting injury before he could complete the score. The prologue and the remaining acts are the work of his pupil Pascal Collasse who finished the work, eight months after Lully's death on March 22, 1687. The opera was first performed on November 7, 1687, by the Paris Opera at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.

An opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 19 November 1751 at the Opera in Paris. It takes the form of a pastorale heroique in three acts. The librettist was Jean-Francois Marmontel.

Abu Hassan is a comic opera in one act by Carl Maria von Weber to a German libretto by Franz Carl Hiemer (de), based on a story in One Thousand and One Nights. It was composed between 11 August 1810 and 12 January 1811 and has set numbers with recitative and spoken dialogue. The work is a Singspiel in the then popular Turkish style.

L'abandon d'Ariane Op. 98 (The Abandonment of Ariane or, in German, Die Verlassene Ariadne) is an opera in one act by Darius Milhaud to a French libretto by Henri Hoppenot, based on Greek mythology. It is the second of three Opéras-Minutes (Mini-Operas) that Milhaud composed. It came between L'Enlèvement d'Europe Op. 94 and La Délivrance de Thésée Op. 99, with librettos also by Henri Hoppenot (1891–1977), a French diplomat. The three operas together last about twenty-seven minutes.

Le 66 is an opérette in one act of 1856 with music by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was by Pittaud de Forges and Laurencin (Paul Aimé Chapelle). Gänzl describes the work as "in the rustic vein of Le violoneux and Le mariage aux lanternes".

1984 is an opera by the American conductor and composer Lorin Maazel, with a libretto by J. D. McClatchy and Thomas Meehan. The opera is based on George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It premiered on 3 May 2005 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in a production directed by Robert Lepage.

1492 epopea lirica d'America is an opera in four acts by Antonio Braga. Composed from 1985 to 1989, it stage premiered on 13 October 1992 in Santo Domingo, Teatro Nacional.

1000 Airplanes on the Roof is a melodrama in one act by Philip Glass which featured text by David Henry Hwang and projections by Jerome Sirlin. It is described by Glass as "a science fiction music drama".