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List of important operas

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Did you know ...

• French opera singer Gustave Huberdeau performed roles ranging from lead roles to character roles to mute roles?
• The Visitors is the only opera Mexican composer Carlos Chávez ever scored?
• The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, a science fiction novel by Doris Lessing, was adapted for the opera in 1997 by Philip Glass?
• The Haunted Manor is the most famous and popular of Polish operas?
• a riot erupted at the opening night of Adelia, an opera by Gaetano Donizetti, because an unscrupulous promoter sold too many tickets?
• although Antonio Maria Bononcini's 1718 opera Griselda was successful, his older brother, Giovanni Bononcini, composed a more popular version in 1722?
• although Aniceto Ortega had a distinguished career as a physician and surgeon in Mexico, he is also remembered today for his 1871 opera Guatimotzin?
• although opera singer Rita Fornia began her career as a coloratura soprano, her voice lowered and darkened causing her to sing mostly mezzo-soprano roles?
• although opera contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink had a son fighting on the other side, she toured the United States to raise money for the USA in World War I?
• Partenope was the first opera written by an American-born composer?
• Opera Jawa is a 2006 Indonesian-Austrian musical film that features traditional Javanese classical music and dance in a setting of opera, inspired by the Ramayana?
• Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo di Corfù‎, founded in 1720, was the first modern opera theatre in Greece?
• Lawrence Turner, who presented a Parliamentary petition calling for W. S. Gilbert's copyright on the libretti of Gilbert and Sullivan operas to be extended indefinitely, was the grandson of comic actor George Grossmith who starred in them?
• Julian Konstantinov, the brother of Bulgarian volleyball team captain Plamen Konstantinov, is an opera singer?
• Jean Nouguès is believed to have written the first opera specifically composed for gramophone recording?
• Verna Arvey got her first break as an opera librettist after poet Langston Hughes left his libretto for the production Troubled Island unfinished?
• William Bergsma wrote an opera about a dog who turned into a man in 1920s Moscow as the result of a crazy experiment?
• La púrpura de la rosa is the first known opera to be written in and performed in the Americas?
• A Bayou Legend by William Grant Still was the first opera composed by an African American to be broadcast on television?
• The New York Times said that trumpeter Stephen Burns "uses his instrument with the lightness and flexibility of a singer in operatic arias"?
• although La princesse jaune is the third opera that Saint-Saëns’ composed, it was his first opera to actually be mounted on the stage?
• an early Washington National Opera, unrelated to its modern namesake, presented Bidu Sayão in her 1936 U.S. operatic debut with organ, not orchestra, accompaniment owing to a financial dispute?
• the opera Les vêpres siciliennes (1885) by Giuseppe Verdi was based in part on the medieval Sicilian tract Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia (1290)?
• the Met's new opera The First Emperor by Tan Dun has been in development for ten years?
• the librettoes for Tchaikovsky's operas Vakula the Smith and Cherevichki were adapted from Gogol's stories by the poet Yakov Polonsky?
• the libretto for Rameau's first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), was provided by the seasoned playwright and librettist abbé Pellegrin?
• the opera King Arthur is unusual because the principal characters do not sing, rather they recite dialogue accompanied by music?
• the Balık sisters from Turkey claim to be the only identical twins who are both professional opera singers?
• the performance of La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina in Warsaw in 1628 was the earliest performance of an Italian opera outside of Italy?
• the lead character in the Mozart opera Don Giovanni calls out for a glass of Marzemino in the final banquet scene before he is carried down to hell?
• the latest opera by composer Andy Vores is a 2008 chamber opera adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit?
• the libretto for Howard Hanson's opera Merry Mount was written without a composer in mind?
• the composer Anton Rubinstein conducted his own opera The Merchant Kalashnikov so badly that the performance had to be stopped?
• composer Egidio Duni was particularly influential in creating a new genre of opera which blended Italian opera elements with traditional French ones?
• composer Gian Carlo Menotti considered his opera The Island God "a big bore"?
• before becoming a famous opera singer, Ines Maria Ferraris had a career as a concert pianist beginning at the age of 12?
• an unknown manuscript of opera libretto by writer Mikhail Bulgakov was found in Isaak Dunayevsky's archive after his death in 1955?
• in 1656, German violinist Thomas Baltzar helped premiere The Siege of Rhodes, thought to have been the first all-sung English opera?
• in 1882 impresario Alfred Schulz-Curtius organized the first performance ever in the UK of Wagner's's epic operatic Ring Cycle?
• in the late 1860s, the soprano Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa and her husband Carl Rosa founded the Parepa-Rosa English Opera Company, which introduced opera to places in the United States that had never staged it before?
• in spite of her great reputation in Europe, operatic soprano Lucienne Bréval had limited success in America as critics thought her singing lacked polish?
• in exchange for shutting down the Manhattan Opera Company and refraining from producing opera in the United States for ten years, Oscar Hammerstein I received over a million dollars from the Metropolitan Opera?
• Isidore de Lara's Messaline was the first opera by an English composer to be produced at La Scala?
• Gary Lakes became an opera singer because a cracked vertebra sustained as a high school football defensive tackle derailed his plans for a sports career?
• Isaac Albéniz's opera Pepita Jiménez has been adapted several times by numerous people into different constructs and languages?
• Icelandic operatic soprano Sigrún Hjálmtýsdóttir, better known as Diddú, began her singing career in the 1970s with a folk and pop group?
• Gaetano Donizetti's opera Le duc d'Albe didn't receive its first performance until more than 40 years after his death?
• Donizetti wrote the title role of his opera Adelia for Giuseppina Strepponi (pictured), the second wife of Giuseppe Verdi?
• lyric coloratura soprano Harolyn Blackwell replaced opera diva Kathleen Battle when she famously got fired from the Metropolitan Opera?
• Maurice Maeterlinck threatened legal action and physical violence against Claude Debussy after he did not cast Maeterlinck's lover, Georgette Leblanc, in the title role of their opera Pelléas et Mélisande?
• opera singer Jessie Bartlett Davis (pictured) volunteered to pay for the publishing of the parlor song "I Love You Truly", the first song written by a woman to sell one million copies?
• opera singer Fisher Morgan, a former principal soloist with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, ended his career in pantomime?
• mezzo-soprano Stephanie Novacek created roles in the premieres of two important operas, the role of Maria Callas in Daugherty's Jackie O and the role of heroine Jo March in Adamo's Little Women?
• Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero, which premiered in 1625, was the first opera written by a woman?
• Felix Mendelssohn walked out in disgust in the middle of the 1827 premiere of his opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho, and cancelled the remaining performances?
• Camille Saint-Saëns's 1911 opera Déjanire was originally a 1898 play accompanied by symphonic music, choruses and a ballet?
• baritone William Dooley performed the title role in the world premiere of Marcel Mihalovici's one character opera Krapp, ou, La dernière bande in 1961?
• Vivaldi's opera Griselda is based on the folklore character Griselda as told by Giovanni Boccaccio in the The Decameron?
• Aleksandr Pushkin's 1827 poem The Gypsies inspired some eighteen operas and six ballets, including Rachmaninoff's Aleko?
• Camille Saint-Saëns's opera Hélène was recorded in 2008 after not being heard since 1919?
• Carnegie Medal-winning children’s author Berlie Doherty has written the libretti for three operas?
• English theatre director Steven Pimlott directed a wide variety of performances from popular musicals, through avant garde theatre and Shakespeare, to opera?
• English opera singer and actress Florence Perry (pictured) was best known for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the late 19th century?
• Dave Burrell's operatic live jazz album Windward Passages was his response to land development in Hawaii during the late 1970's?
• opera singer Richard Suart, known for his roles in Gilbert and Sullivan, has also specialised in avant-garde modern opera?
• opera singer Rosemary Kuhlmann was an assistant to the international vice-president of PepsiCo for 16 years from the age of 56, despite intending to stay for only four months?
• American baritone James Billings has portrayed more than 175 opera roles on stage during his long career?
• British actor Norman Lumsden, who played J. R. Hartley in the popular 1983 Yellow Pages Fly Fishing advert, was originally an opera singer who created roles for Benjamin Britten?
• Udo Zimmermann's opera, Die weisse Rose tells the story of Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister who were guillotined by the Nazis for leading a non-violent resistance group?
• Tunisian writer, actor, and director of theatre Mohamed Driss paid tribute to the historian Ibn Khaldoun by writing an opera in his honor?
• American composer Stephen Paulus gained fame with a 1982 opera based on The Postman Always Rings Twice, one of his nine operas?
• American opera singer Margaret Harshaw portrayed more Wagnerian heroines on stage at the Metropolitan Opera than anyone else in the opera's history?
• Alan Wagner, the first president of the Disney Channel, was also an opera critic and radio personality?
• "On Again...Off Again" features influences from both dance music and opera, the only time that such a combination has appeared at the Eurovision Song Contest?
• William Michael Rooke's opera Amilie, or the Love Test enabled New Yorkers of 1838 to appreciate "a broad new repertoire"?
• soprano Cesira Ferrani originated two of the most iconic roles in opera history, Mimì (pictured) in the world premiere of Puccini's La bohème and the title role in the premiere of Puccini's Manon Lescaut?
• Philip Pullman's novel Clockwork was adapted into an opera for children?
• operatic soprano Dawn Kotoski won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1990?
• operatic soprano Celestina Boninsegna sang her first leading role at the unusually young age of 15?
• opera superstar Giuseppe Cremonini's career was tragically cut short upon his sudden death at the age of 36?
• opera singers Johann Nepomuk Beck, Marie Wilt, and Hans von Rokitansky all performed in the world premiere of Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba on 10 March 1875?
• operatic soprano Maria Zamboni was the first person to record the title role of Puccini's Manon Lescaut in its entirety?
• operatic soprano Romilda Pantaleoni sang the role of Desdemona in the original 1887 production of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello?
• operatic tenor Franz Ferenczy portrayed the role of Samson in the world premiere of Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila on 2 December 1877?
• operatic tenor Andreas Dippel portrayed the title role in Alberto Franchetti Asrael in its United States premiere at the Metropolitan Opera?
• operatic soprano Gail Robinson won the Metropolitan Opera auditions at the young age of 19?
• 18th-century operatic star Anna Maria Strada was known as "the Pig" on account of her ugliness?