Operatic Reflections
29 December

Over the past ten years I have attended a lot of opera; 175 performances of 119 different operas.

I've attended some notable operas for the first time.

• George Frideric Handel's Ariodante
• Domenico Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage
• Gioachino Rossini's Il turco in Italia
• Gaetano Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment
• Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco
• Giuseppe Verdi's Alzira
• Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Giuseppe Verdi's Luisa Miller
• Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele
• Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet
• Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila
• Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut
• Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel
• Pietro Mascagni's Iris
• Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur
• Manuel de Falla's La vida breve
• Giacomo Puccini's La Rondine
• Giacomo Puccini's Il Trittico
• Bohuslav Martinu's Julietta
• Samuel Barber's Vanessa

I've also attended some operas more than once.

• Three Times
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni
• Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos
• Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele
• Georges Bizet's Carmen
• Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff
• Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème
• Giacomo Puccini's Tosca
• Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly
• Leos Janacek's Katy'a Kabanova
• Giacomo Puccini's Turandot
• Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw
• Four Times
• Christoph Willibald von Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Zauberflöte
• Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto
• Seven Times
• Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata

I've seen multiple works by some composers.

• Three Works
• Wagner
Der fliegende Holländer, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal
• Strauss
Salome, Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos
• Four Works
• Handel
Ariodante, Alcina, Semele and Jephtha
• Offenbach
Orphée aux enfers, La belle Hélène, La Périchole and Les contes d'Hoffmann
• Janacek
Jenufa, Katy'a Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen and From The House Of The Dead
• Five Works
• Donizetti
L'elisir d'amore, Maria Stuarda, La fille du Régiment, Maria Padilla and Don Pasquale
• Six Works
• Mozart
• Ascanio in Alba, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte
• Britten
• Peter Grimes, Albert Herring, Billy Budd, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Seven Works
• Rossini
• L'occasione fa il ladro, L'Italiana in Algeri, Il turco in Italia, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La cenerentola, La gazza ladra and Semiramide
• Eight Works
• Puccini
• Manon Lescaut, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La fancuilla del West, La rondine, Il trittico and Turandot
• Seventeen Works
• Verdi
• Oberto, Un giorno di regno, Nabucco, Ernani, Alzira, Macbeth, I masnadieri, Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera, Don Carlos, Aida, Otello and Falstaff

There are still two operas that I would love to see for the first time.

• Verdi's Les Vêpres Siciliennes
• Delibes' Lakmé

There are a number which I would relish the chance of re-visiting.

• Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea
• Handel's Guilio Cesare
• Mozart's Die entführung aus dem serail
• Rossini's La donna del lago
• Bellini's I puritani
• Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
• Gounod's Faust
• Bizet's Les pécheurs de perles
• Smetana's The Bartered Bride
• Ponchielli's La gioconda
• Massenet's Werther
• Szymanowski's King Roger
• Kodaly's Hary Janos
• Janacek's The Makropulos Case
• Henze's The Bassarids
• Britten's Death in Venice

There are a few which wild horses would not persuade me to attend.

• Mozart's Idomeneo
• Weber's Der Freischütz
• Wagner's Lohengrin
• Berlioz's Les Troyens
• Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande

There's still plenty for me to see and do.