This is an archive of past discussions about List of prominent operas. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Unclassified (February 2002)

I think we should have a consensus or naming the operas either by their most usual english translation, or their original name. Right now we have a mixture of both. AstroNomer

In Europe they are mostly known by their original name, and opera eminently speaks italian. What about a double list?

My personal inclination would be the format Original name (English translation). But I've been hesitant to institute that, given all the comments on how this is an English language encyclopedia. It wouldn't be difficult to institute - just put redirects on whatever are considered the "alternate" names. -- April

Yes, this is an english language encyclopedia, but it is on the Net, where I find it very hard to imagine that one would be able to retrieve any useful information on Carmen's "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (just to keep near NPOV, and not pro-italian only) if looking for it as "Love is a rebel bird", or whatever it is translated to. Arias in particular should (more than titles) have their original score language, or it would be difficult to identify them. You wouldn't expect "Summertime" being classified abroad the way it could be locally translated to.

So I completely agree with your suggestion (and hope I can help if needed). :-)

=

Couple of questions for consideration: should operettas go on this page? Separate page? Under operetta? I refuse to leave out Gilbert and Sullivan, darn it. Also, how should we handle the distinction between opera, operetta, and musical? -- April

Well, I think operetta might better be kept apart; there are not only academic or theoretical distinctions, but technical differences too. And this is more evident for "musical", which includes other artistic genres too, like ballet and a notable relationship with cinema.

This however could make things more complicated: "classical" partition starts from composers, practically depending on relevance of their work in single fields. But this way you would have Gershwin listed only as a "musical" composer, or perhaps as a jazz standards producer, which is not, or not only.

Therefore we should refer to single works and have them listed in their own genre, if they might belong to only one.

I believe that the risk of dubbing informations could eventually be less painful than omitting important ones.

Unclassified (2002-2003)

Why do we need to add short descriptions when almost all of these operas have detailed descriptions on their own pages? --rmhermen

I am starting this to lots of what I call "naked lists". I'm on a crusade to make such "one-liners" a regular feature of lists in wikipedia.

Plots of operas are damned interesting and I think a page full of them would be fun to read, and also provide nice information for people who want to make the point that it isn't just rap music that's full of lowlifes acting bad.
If there is no accompanying article, at least there's something
Many people won't know the difference between La Boheme and Carmen (pretty girls in trouble) and can benefit from a hint or two as to which opera is the one they're looking for.
Lists are a great way of pulling everything together, but a long list of otherwise unidentified character strings is both uninformative and boring. Every article should have content (even disambiguation pages usually have additional reader guidance beyond the highlighted entries).
Other people besides me agree, see List of novelists, List of battles.
They're tons of fun to write. I'm going to carry on with this, but don't worry, I don't know much more about opera, so I'll leave this page to others to carry on and meanwhile I'll see you at List of notable actors.

Ortolan88 08:05 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

It is an interesting idea, indeed, but I have some (respectful) doubts about its current form. There are good reasons, effectively, to have some elements of each single work in this page too, as other good reasons might exist to respect... the religious devotion of Opera's lovers (I'm one, I confess :-). But, it seems to me that to be more coherent with the general spirit and style, these concise notes could be listed as "keywords" (like html meta), as we cannot summarize anything more in the given one line. I regret, but I can't agree on the paragon with the other lists you mentioned: it is useful, there, to have some details that include reasons for listing or details on facts. Here instead we are facing artworks (or presumed ones), which elements (characters, facts, etc) are not "technical data" like we could read in a PC advertising: HD X Mb, RAM Y Mb, Processor: *** Z Mhz and so on. The Threepenny Opera summary is quite new indeed to Opera's lovers: of course it is true, but it is also truly strange (from my point of observation, naturally).

Moreover, we all would like to invite newcomers to follow links, or to put some new content in empty ones, so (IMHO) I wouldn't give the idea that the works are already described (this way) in these lines.

What I do think is that, if we can find a way to put these concise elements in a form which could essentially mean a list of keywords, nothing more, it could be an interesting experiment to test it in this page. I'd like to help, in this case, for the little I know. -- Gianfranco

While I know nothing about opera, I do agree with Ortolan that lists should be annotated (as I wrote on his talk page, yesterday). However, I also agree with Gianfranco that the current annotations here are maybe a bit too short. Why limit yourself to one line/sentence? And even then, a short full sentence is often more useful to me than just some keywords. So I'd rather have "Famous opera by Verdi set in ancient Egypt" than "love, treachery and sphinxes" (please note that both are not meant to be a serious description...). The idea is not to bring back the opera to a few keywords, but to inform the reader of the list about why the opera is in the list anyway, and why he should go read (or edit) the article about it. Jheijmans 23:45 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

Change away then, but annotate. Brecht and Weill are the only opera writers who mean anything to me and I put in, in allusive form, everything that I like about their two operas (except the name Alaskawolfjoe). I personally prefer "love, treachery, elephants, and sphinxes" to "famous opera about ancient Egypt" but either one of them is vastly superior to a bare Aida; both of them identify the opera and lead readers on. The one-liners in List of battles are quite serious, compressed, and informative, while those in List of novelists are more whimsical. Both lists work for me.

I do think they should be kept short, three lines or so. The main function of the list is traffic direction. The annotations should contribute to that function, not replace real articles.

Der Mensch lebt durch den Kopf,

Sein Kopf reicht ihm nicht aus

Man lives by his head,

His head is not enough

Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera)

But we stagger on,

Ortolan88 09:11 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Ortolan, I think the exact contents of an annotation are subject to personal preferences, as so often. But, I think annotations certainly benefit from full sentences. So "A story of love and treachery set in ancient Egypt.", which has about the same contents as "love, treachery, Egypt" has my preference. That is actually all I wanted to say. Even better - IMO - would be "A famous opera of Verdi about love and treachery, set in ancient Egypt". But that is all my personal preference, and I leave you free to ignore it :-) Jheijmans

Directly taken from Tosca article:

the story of a painter and his woman, a famous singer, who die because they have helped a breacher political prisoner (that later will suicide) to escape; the woman attempts a corruption of the chief policeman, who defrauds her and by her is killed, but will have his revenge after his death.

This could be a fair description of the work (I wouldn't say less), but it does not mention any carachter, so it perhaps should be:

the story of a painter (Mario Cavaradossi) and his woman (Floria Tosca), a famous singer, who die because they have helped a breacher political prisoner (Angelotti, that later will suicide) to escape; the woman attempts a corruption of the chief policeman (Scarpia), who defrauds her and by her is killed, but will have his revenge after his death.

A good reason to have characters here could be that someone might be looking for a work of which he remembers the roles (perhaps because of a famous aria) but not the title.

I don't think that personal preferences might produce very different results in summarising these works this way: their content does not seem controversially readable.

I'm only afraid that for some works this kind of description could be longer than the article it links to (I think that, currently, most Melitz's plot summaries recall by now the famous "1911" style, so I'm only talking about the introductory notes of each article).

The following consideration is aboout carachters: ought we to list them all, work by work? -- Gianfranco

I would say that for the list page, whatever is most memorable or notable about the opera would be the best thing to mention, which is why I mentioned "cigarette girl" and "March of the Toreadors" under Carmen and "Mack the Knife" under Dreigroschenoper.

I agree that a brief summary from the article itself is an excellent way to supply these brief descriptions. A well written article will almost automatically contain something like that. If the article doesn't have one, maybe it should be added to the article and then quoted here in the "list of famous operas" article.

If a character in an opera is the most notable thing (again, I don't know much about operas) then that would be appropriate for the list, but otherwise, it would probably be best to put discussion of the characters in the discussion of the individual operas. It would be a rare opera character who would deserve an article on their own. I can't think of one off the top of my head. Well, "Mack the Knife", I guess, but he's famous from the hit parade, not the opera.

As a matter of writing style, bulleted lists are unusual in that they can consist of anything from a single word to several paragraphs, although all on one page or screen is a pretty good limit. In tech writing, the things we are talking about are called "one-liners", although they can be from one to a few lines in length. It is probably a matter of individual taste whether it is better to say, "The opera tells the story of a consumptive prostitute" or simply to say "consumptive prostitute". The briefer style suits me, but I don't want to discourage anyone from annotating these lists and if you opera folks agree that sentences are preferable, I'll change them, or you can. Ortolan88 08:57 Jul 25, 2002 (PDT)

Theatre people consider the Brecht-Weill works as plays, and thus the writer Brecht is the big name and the composer Weill of less importance. When they are considered operas, as in this article, I do believe they should be sorted under the composer. The other librettists are not mentioned, why should Brecht be here? Habj 16:42 17 May 2003 (UTC)

Old page at Talk:Famous Operas moved to Talk:List of famous operas/from Talk:Famous Operas. -- Timwi 18:39 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria (2003)

Generally I don't like lists on WP but this is a good one, mainly because it is selective and finite (ie, there is a reasonable chance of it being complete, unlike some of the lists I've seen people compiling). However, in my opinion the list could be slightly improved by narrowing the selection from "famous and historically significant operas" to simply "famous operas" with the criterium being those operas which are performed on a regular basis, and hence would reflect the current standard operatic repertoire. This would suggest some delicate pruning; Jacopo Peri's Euridice, Pergolesi's, La Serva Padrona, Menotti, Glass, perhaps a few others. My argument would be that "historically significant" operas can best be treated in the main opera article or under the respective composers. Thoughts anyone? -- Viajero 21:34, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't really have a problem as such with ditching "historically significant" works, but I do think there's a bigger problem with trying to list "famous" examples of anything: how famous does something have to be to get in, and how do you measure it? I mean, of the examples you give, I'd agree that the Peri, Pergolesi and Menotti aren't really famous, but I think some of Glass' works have become very well known (Einstein on the Beach, at least), and other people will, no doubt, feel differently about other works. We can have a go at making a list of the standard repertory or of "famous" operas, but we could do with some indepedent test to decide what to include, I think, and I really don't know what that test would be. So I think I'll leave you to this one! --Camembert

Einstein on the Beach may be famous, but is it performed on a regular basis, ie, say once a year somewhere in the world? For example, I doubt Les Troyens or William Tell are, hence although they are famous and historically significant operas, I would argue that they are not part of the standard repertoire). Yes I realize, it is tricky; these things aren't cast in concrete.. Viajero 21:11, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well good luck with it, anyway. As I say, I shall be staying out of this one :) --Camembert

Are there really so many operas in the world? If you list them all, perhaps pushing some of the excessively-prolific earlies into per-composer lists, you forestall endless arguments about significance, plus you can say "WP has a complete list of operas", which is a useful selling point when readers are considering where to go for their reference info. For instance, when all the articles in list of ancient Romans are filled in, WP will be the top reference for Romans online, and a rival for the OCD to boot. Stan 21:55, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There's no way we can have a complete list - there are thousands and thousands, and new ones are being written all the time. We could, of course, have list of operas and list there anything that comes to mind, but I think Viajero's idea is to have something a bit more selective (and useful) than that. --Camembert

Actually, I don't think that it would be such a selling point, since it for the foreseeable future it would serve primarily to indicate how meagre the offerings here are. For example, there are only articles for some two dozen of the most famous operas, and of those, they offer just plot synopses from public domain sources. Very little original material, no production histories. As for singers... check out Luciano Pavarotti. Need I say more?!?!? There are few good articles here on classical music subjects, but as a whole it will be years before people start mulching their Groves on account of WP. Así es amigo. Viajero 23:39, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

PS, that being said, I rather enjoy the opera corner as quiet as it is. You don't want to even contemplate the kind of edit wars that will take place when diehard opera fans start showing up. It will make Israeli-Palestinian conflict look like a kindergarten... Viajero 23:39, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The thousands of operas are early baroque, and for most of them, only the title has survived anyway, so those need only be mentioned with the composer. Although Grove may not have much to fear yet, it's a worthy goal to out-encyclopedia them, eh? We want WP to be the place that readers come to first to find out about any opera, famous or obscure. Stan 00:53, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you were talking about making a list, not writing articles. Of course we should try to have an article on every opera ever - I was just saying that trying to make a list of every opera ever is unrealistic (and a bit pointless). --Camembert

Well, if you have an article on every opera, you need an index to them, right? Stan 05:00, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yes, maybe, if you like. What I mean is: we should try to write about every opera ever, but chances are that we never will and we won't therefore, ever be able to say - as you said above - "WP has a complete list of operas". I'm not sure we disagree on anything much, really. --Camembert

Ok Stan, let's set our sights high. The twenty-volume Grove has nearly thirty thousand articles, including:

20,374 biographies of composers, performers and writers on music
1,465 articles on styles, terms and genres
580 articles on ancient music and church music
805 articles on regions, countries and cities
2,261 articles on instruments and their makers, and performance practice
693 articles on printing and publishing
1,327 articles on world musics
1,221 articles on popular music, light music, and jazz
283 articles on concepts
89 articles on acoustics
174 articles on notation
96 articles on theatre directors
131 articles on sources

We have a long way to go! -- Viajero 12:53, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well then, stop standing around and get busy! :-) Alas, my music library is only about 20 books total, although it does include 1-volume Grove, which is a starting place if nothing else. Stan 13:58, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No no, can't have you distracted from more important things, like ~~missile mail~~ dirigible mail ;-) -- Viajero 14:07, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Move (2003-2004)

Page moved according to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Lists. --Jia ng 08:19, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What a pity this is now to become a jejeune 'List of operas.' Much less useful. Does everyone understand the difference between a 'List of famous operas' that describes the international repertory, and an incomplete 'List of Operas' with everybody's favorite obscurity added higgledy-piggledy? Wetman 08:25, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sorry Jiang, we don't want to turn this list into a list of operas -- there are probably 20,000. As stated in the text, this is a list of operas in the current repetoire (plus a couple of historically signficant items). Much more useful. Thanks for your understanding. -- Viajero 09:37, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps we should consider a move to List of Operas in the Standard Repertoire... --Chinasaur

I agree that's a better title for the page as it is shaping up. There are plenty of operas that are famous that are not in the standard repertoire (repertory?) For example, Il Sant' Alessio, by Steffano Landi, the first opera ever composed on a historical subject; the first Euridice, by Jacopo Peri, and the opera of the same title by Giulio Caccini (does anyone ever do these?) The major drawback to renaming the page is that it changes it: you could argue then that the Peri, which is on the list, should come off, since it's not in the standard rep. Another messy possibility is forking a new page off at this point ... What does anyone else think? Antandrus 23:10, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What's the difference between this list and any other list? What's to stop us from adding any old Joe onto List of Jews? It's implied that only famous people/items belong and this can be stated in the article, even commented in the HTML code that only famous ones should be named. The intro of this article makes the criteria for inclusion clear enough. --Jia ng 08:56, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

And if you make a move, please click on "what links here" and fix all the double redirects. --Jia ng 08:57, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Removals for Consideration by Others (2004)

My knowledge and the list seem pretty closely tuned, so i took the liberty of removing the following:

(Mozart:)

- Ascanio in Alba

(Verdi:)

- Alzira

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
- La Serva Padrona (Naples 1733)

("Not famous as an opera, only famous as GBP's only opera." [smirk])

I'll be perfectly happy as long as it takes a week or two of discussion before they each return to the list; i agree there are no solid answers to much of what should stay.
--Jerzy (t) 17:40, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

I agree that these three should be off the list. I remember doing a performance of the Pergolesi when I was an undergrad and it was supposedly a premiere; probably few have heard of it though.

On the other hand, what do you think about including some others that are done at the Met, and other big houses, from time to time? I thought about adding Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle and Barber's Vanessa this morning but didn't (LA Opera is doing Vanessa next season). It does seem that "standard rep" is a dynamic concept, and what is standard rep in ten years might be different from what was standard rep in 1950. Antandrus 17:49, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I always thought La Serva Padrona was given reasonably often (at least as often as L'Incoronazione di poppea, which is on the list). I suppose I could be wrong, but my Penguin Opera Guide (which is a trimmed-down Viking) says it has "been performed almost continually since [its] creation". By the way, the intro to the list says "Wagner's Rienzi and Berg's Lulu are missing", but Lulu is right there in the list: not sure which way that inconsistency should be resolved. --Camembert

In that case I vote for including Serva and Bluebeard's Castle but perhaps not the others; I wasn't sure how well known Serva was on the other side of the Atlantic. Oh, and I think the top text just hadn't been edited since someone added Lulu: personally I feel Lulu should be on the list. But then I know I have to watch out for my pro-Lulu POV, LOL. ;-) Antandrus 18:03, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Menotti's Consul? By what stretch of the imagination can this be considered standard repertory? And for that matter the rest of the Menotti??? Are any of them ever performed in Europe these days? -- Viajero 18:15, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Not having followed the uncategorized discussion at the top, and suspecting that it is focussed on the "zero-order" issue of "can we exclude any opera at all, i put forward this question: is the description at the start of the article agreed upon, or even thoroughly thought thru? IMO my reaction means that Viajero has started a fork in this thread; hence see #What Standard Rep?

What Standard Rep? (2004)

At 18:15, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC), Viajero asked:

Menotti's Consul? By what stretch of the imagination can this be considered standard repertory? And for that matter the rest of the Menotti??? Are any of them ever performed in Europe these days?

In starting this sub-section, i said in response:

Not having followed the uncategorized discussion at the top, and suspecting that it is focused on the "zero-order" issue of "can we exclude any opera at all?", i put forward this question: is the description at the start of the article agreed upon, or even thoroughly thought thru?

More specifically,

The intro aims it at "reflect[ing] the Operatic Repertory" (note the odd use of upper case as if a proper name could apply), but
immediately blurs this by claiming it to be precisely something else, "the most famous and historically significant operas".

Well, what opera could be more "historically significant" than Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo? (Not on this list.) Is historical significance more than a red herring here, and if not, why no effort to ID the works that make Mozart stand out for mucking with the libretto, and Wagner, for Gesamtkunstwerk (movie music, am i wrong?)? What about the work that made verismo a live option?

But i am dissembling, because my purpose in mentioning History is to disrupt the presumption that the intro has done more than lay to rest the "list of all operas" would-be-disaster, and thereby present us with a reasonable starting place.

The point about what is performed in Europe is of interest: is it more important to document, in an English 'pedia, the works that are regularly performed in each country that has a lively operatic life, or in each of those countries where English is primary, or in any of the countries where English is primary? Can we make each of those collections of info available within a single list? Is it worth having separate lists for them?

And don't forget that operas move in and out of the rep just because of the performers who are available.

I think we can fudge this point okay; I haven't seen Salome billed (at least on the West Coast) in a long time and I think you've got the exact reason, but I see it's still in the list already, so I'm not so worried. --Chinasaur 05:03, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I guess what i'm arguing is that we don't know enough about what it is we are listing to resolve these disagreements.
--Jerzy (t) 20:37, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

History and dynamics of the opera repertory (2004)

The addition of Ascanio and Alzira must have been a show-off ludibrium. Orfeo and La Serva padrona raise more serious issues, discussed by User:Jerzy. Antandrus raises a major issue: "It does seem that "standard rep" is a dynamic concept, and what is standard rep in ten years might be different from what was standard rep in 1950." Absolutely! This aspect should be treated in a subsection at Opera, which I'm starting as a stub right now. Please go and help!

Can any Wikipedian append simply the number of CDs available to this list of operas, so that a reader can judge whether some opera not on the list is "famous" or not. 'Famous" is so easily assessed. The 21st century repertory is directly reflected in available recordings. This axiom should be in the introduction. Any disagreement? Wetman 23:39, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The development and dynamics of the idea of a repertory, part of Sociology of Opera (subsection at Opera?) can make good material. The question "is a repertory of Opera real, and if real is it permitted" is less interesting to me personally, part of the subject Political correctness. Wetman 23:39, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Translations (2004)

It's also tough to be sure whether to have the English or original-language titles.
Many users of this page may be people who've recently (e.g.) started dating an opera fan, and want to read upon the work they're about to see; they may have the "wrong" version of the name. Might it not be useful to include both both versions, with the more frequently used one first, with the only exceptions being English-original works and names that belong to the language of the opera? For instance, even tho i've never seen such references to Lucia, IMO "Lucy of Lammermoor" (whether or not that was Scott's title -- who's read it??), adds to accessibility.

--Jerzy (t) 17:40, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

It's The Bride of Lammermoor, and I'm not really sure providing a translation in that particular case would be useful because, as you say, it's never used. Some of the more common bilingual titles are given already however (Die Zauberflöte, for instance) and, yes, maybe this could be taken further (The Girl of the Golden West, anybody?). --Camembert

I've seen "Girl of the Golden West" billed. --Chinasaur 05:01, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Where an established English title exists, we use it; where not, the original. -- Viajero 18:07, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good point, Cam! (Tho i was deprecating the fame of the Sir Walter Scott source, not of the title per se, but obviously what do i know.) I conclude that in that case, that trivium belongs in the Lucia article instead. And Viajero's comment hightlights what i was noticing, that the article is Girl of the Golden West, and merely piped (by me, IIRC!) on this page. --Jerzy (t) 18:27, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

Girl of the Golden West was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and premiered in N'Yawk (billed as Fanciulla del West?)! And Verdi's Don Carlo is subtly different in some details from his Paris Don Carlos. But Wikipedia's redirect links save anyone from despair, after all. Wetman 06:07, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Order of operas (2004)

I notice many (perhaps all that have not been screwed up by people like me adding operas w/o having their dates) of the operas are in chronological order within author. That's an amenity i expect in the author article, but IMO it serves little purpose here. Wouldn't it be more useful to order them alphabetically, since for many of its users the chrono order is esoterica that they'll look on the composer page for, when they're ready for it, anyway?

(I admit that the date and city are so compact as to be worth the slight distraction, and premier cities of, e.g., Fanciulla & Aida are great fact-lings.)
--Jerzy (t) 18:27, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

Alphabetical order is more important in printed media. On a web page, one can easily locate an item of interest by using the browser's "search" function. Keeping a composer's operas in chronological order seems to me to make more sense. - Nunh-huh 06:13, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm partial to chronological order by composer, but that might just be the pedantic residue of too many years of graduate school. Anyway, unless the scope of this list changes there probably won't be too many operas under any given composer. Antandrus 06:17, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)