The TC 100 Top-Recommended Operas Project

For starters, let's try to establish what we as a group consider to be the top 10 operas of all time. Here's Almaviva's list..............

1. The Ring of the Nibelung
2. Les Troyens
3. Tristan und Isolde
4. The Marriage of Figaro
5. Otello
6. La Boheme
7. Don Giovanni
8. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
9. Norma
10. La Traviata

......Discuss. Which ones on this list can everyone agree with?

Hmm... let's see... OK, I got it: I can agree with all of them, in the exact same order.

Thanks for taking my top 10 as the initial suggestion. Please allow me to defend my choice a little bit.

First of all, we need to try and define why we consider some operas to be the greatest. I guess it has to do with a number of characteristics, more or less weighty depending on individual values. But beauty in my opinion should definitely be one of them. Of course beauty is in the eyes (or ears) of the beholder, and while some people find extreme beauty in melodious Bel Canto or Baroque, others can't stand the sound of a harpsichord and find beauty in dissonant/atonal works. Nevertheless, how can we ever avoid the "beauty" part in such selections?

Innovation should also be a consideration. Operas that belong to a certain movement or era and don't really do much to advance the artform have their place as well - they may derive their place from the "beauty" part - but there is something to be said for those that are divisors of waters... think of Monteverdi as one of the pionners, of Gluck changing the ways of opera seria, of Mozart's spectacular orchestration, of Verdi evolving from aria numbers to scenes to through composition, of Wagner introducing musical dramas and shifting the direction of music in Tristan & Isolde, of R. Strauss oscilating between tradition and modernism, of the New Vienna School again turning music into a new direction, etc.

Lasting popularity is another consideration. What is popular is not always equal to what is good - McDonald's is popular but I'd still prefer a gourmet restaurant anytime I can afford one - but again, there is something to be said for lasting popularity, in the fact that such operas are not just a product of time-limited fashion but endure because they reach some sort of truth or some sort of expressive connectivity with the audience that make them be heard over and over. In other words, these operas have passed the test of time.

Cultural identity is another one - and one thinks of what can be said to be authentic Russian opera, Italian opera, German/Austrian opera, French opera, etc. Certainly we're bond to select in the list of 100, operas that are not widely known but are vigorous regional examples that aren't better diffused thanks to language barriers, niche admirers, etc - which doesn't mean they aren't good enough to be included.

Libretti are also important. Great music has been set to rather ridiculous plots, and some operas survive their bad libretti, but it does help when libretti are top quality as well - which relates to the literary value of the source, the poetry of the librettist, the talent in dealing with this special medium in which it takes a lot longer to tell a story because the story is being sung rather than spoken. A Boito, a Da Ponte certainly add to operas and may raise their final rankings in our lists.

Many will probably suggest very obscure operas. I don't doubt they may be very good, but I'd like strong evidence that they belong in a list of 100 greatest rather than in one of interesting works to be explored, but that don't quite exhibit all the qualities necessary to belong in such a list. I'm afraid of a certain fascination for the obscure or the new, before these works really and truly prove their mettle. It's like certain food critics who quote small restaurants and grant them some grade inflation, as opposed to those of celebrated chefs. I think a certain consensus is important in a list like this. There are many fine operas out there that aren't known to the wide public but to say that they are among the 100 greatest in my humble opinion would be stretching it a little, for the lack of this consensual quality. Anyway, that's just my opinion, others may feel radically differently about this, and that's why this thread may become interesting because I'd love to read arguments pro and con the inclusion of some operas. At the very least, this will make us more familiar with more obscure works.

So, let's see my initial suggestion, how do I defend these ten?

1. The Ring of the Nibelung - for its scope and ambition and long-reaching arc and its sublime moments, in spite of some longueurs.
2. Les Troyens - one of the most underrated operas ever, a sublime masterpiece with a sense of History and the everlasting battle between love and duty, coupled with astounding music, including phenomenal chorus music, in a tight packet in which nothing is superfluous or unnecessary in spite of its length.
3. Tristan und Isolde - for the sheer beauty of its score and scenes, and the lasting impact on Western music of its innovative approach
4. The Marriage of Figaro - For the brilliance of the orchestration, spectacular pace, large number of outstanding arias, exquisite libretto
5. Otello - for the psychological depth, impactuous defining moment, powerful written through composition, outstanding libretto
6. La Boheme - for the romanticism, soaring melody, touching moments, and general addressing of the question of youthful passions and life in the moment
7. Don Giovanni - for being so wickedly entertaining and tracing so well the arc between light humor and serious drama from beginning to end, as well as the same above mentioned orchestration and libretto qualities of the pair Mozart-Da Ponte
8. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg - for one of the most extraordinary characters in all of opera (Hans Sachs), for the love of music expressed in it both in musical and dramatic terms
9. Norma - Casta Diva. Enough said. That's maybe the peak of beauty in all of opera.
10. La Traviata - OK, this one I believe will be controversial to include as high as top ten, but I stick to my guns here. Lasting popularity is a given, but it's not all. It's also the evolution to scenes rather than arias, the precision of its musical construction (the first act is a thing of beauty in its precise tone panting, the Germont-Violetta scene with its subtle psychological progression fully expressed in the music is another one), the profound shift in tematic, bringing in regular people with regular psychological issues rather than historical or mythological subjects, and lets not forget the beauty of its arias and overture/intermezzo.

I'm looking forward to hearing about other people's top ten and why they list them in there.

I second the Ring cycle, Tristan, and Meistersinger (more the first two than the last). The others are out of my comfort zone, so to speak. I think other than this post I'll wait for a little while until we pursue the top 100.

If I might be so bold as to suggest the possibility of plugging for Oedipe for the top 10, however... I'd love to.

Oh, but now I have to defend it. Ok. I don't know where to start. As far as beauty goes, this is one of the most lavishly orchestrated music I've ever heard, tonal with dissonances that are still unbelievably beautiful. As for the libretto, it's the only controversial thing about it. As for popularity, people around the forums might not know about this opera, but it's enjoyed a cult following since the day it premiered. The drama is palpable throughout, and there are many scenes that are particularly bone-chilling (the sphinx's death, Oedipus arriving at his death site, etc.). The third act culminates in an enormous climax that the entire opera has been leading up to, and it truly delivers, while the fourth act is the beautiful catharsis, all played out by Enescu's masterly sense of unfolding drama and musical development. Also, for those into this sort of thing, the play of leitmotifs is so complex as to be almost impossible to follow, but it is able to be listened to at any level and still be very accessible and dramatic. Indeed, many professional critics had no idea about the leitmotif system employed until studying the score intensively. So I'd push this opera for the top 10, but don't mind if it doesn't make it as long as it's in the final 100.

Just a thought.....Should we consider the Ring as one opera? I guess we should, but one could also argue that they are four operas and that each one of them should be judged on it's own merits. Best to get that issue out of the way now.

I'm going to have to do serious thinking before I contribute in a meaningful way, because I know my favourites aren't in any way the greatest.

jhar26 said:

The idea is that our membership would try to reach some kind of consensus as to what the 100 greatest operas in history are. Something that I expect will be mission impossible, but it could nevertheless be an interesting exercise.

Click to expand...

Ah, consensus-building. Not always easy... but worth trying if taken in the spirit of co-operation.

On account of this, I make two proposals- 1) limit objections to what we feel are absolute, non-negotiable (to us) positions, and 2) after agreeing on a set of 10, have ANOTHER user (preferably not a Staffer, but we'll serve if no-one else is nominated) come up with the next set of 10. Then, after that set's fleshed out, another user (who hasn't gone before) can offer up another set of 10, and so on.

And in that spirit of co-operation, I will register no objections to any of the first 10 nominated (as I think they're all worthy of mention on a top 100 list), except to say this much-

No list of top-10 operas should exclude Carmen... period.

As to what it would replace- doesn't matter too much to me, as long as it's not a Wagner work.

(Also in the spirit of compromise, I'll go along with calling the Ring one opera,
especially seeing as how you'all were nice enough to place it first.)

Ring = one opera. Just like Les Troyens is one although it's been staged in two nights - Troy and Carthage

Carmen in my opinion: top 20 but not top 10.

Am a bit confused (happens a lot)

Will we end up with a list with No. 1 regarded as the best ever opera of all times as chosen/voted for by us and No. 100 a good one but not that good? Or just 100 great operas in any order?

While generating ten lists of ten operas would give us a total of one hundred operas, I'm curious as to why that seems the most efficient way to go about it. Maybe it's my background in writing, where you produce a hundred pages of raw text to whittle down to ten pages of pure gold. (And, apparently, with no fear of mixed metaphors, either!)

That is, at least, the easiest way to produce ten pages of deathless prose. Produce more than ten (and a hundred would be excessive!) and then cut.

And why one hundred? Out of the tens of thousands of operas there are, are there really a hundred that are "the best"? Couldn't the number equally be 83 or 267 or even 1,134? How about we each propose some nice operas (and without fashing ourselves about ranking, which will just rankle, I fear) and see how many we come up with?

And another thing. What's the likelihood that the TC 100 will consist entirely of operas everyone already knows? (The extent to which that is true is the extent to which such an exercise is just a way for each person to parade his or her taste, not a place where anyone will learn anything.) So we've got Berlioz' Les Troyens on the first list of ten, and Benvenuto Cellini, which is the more innovative of the two, and thus the one that repays repeated listenings more, possibly not getting even into the sacred top one hundred, simply if hardly anyone here knows it.

With all that in mind, here is a list of operas (and some perhaps less than "operatic" music theater) that have rocked me back on my heels--other than the ones already mentioned.

Berlioz, Benvenuto Cellini
Berlioz, Béatrice et Bénédict
Saint-Saens, Samson et Delila
Schoenberg, Moses und Aron
Berg, Wozzeck
Berg, Lulu
Krenek, Jonny spielt auf
Janácek, Osud
Janácek, Cunning Little Vixen
Janácek, Katya Kabanova
Janácek, The Makropolus Case
Janácek, From the House of the Dead
Prokofiev, Love for Three Oranges
Prokofiev, Semyon Kotko
Prokofiev, Betrothal in a Monastery
Prokofiev, War & Peace
Shostakovich, The Nose
Shostakovich, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
Partch, Delusion of the Fury
Partch, Revelation in the Courthouse Park
Feldman, Neither
Cage, Europeras (4)
Ligeti, Le Grande Macabre
Maderna, Satyricon
Nørgård, Nuit des Hommes
Goebbels, Ou bien le débarquement désastreux
Goebbels, Eraritjaritjaka, museum of phrases
Kutavičius, Lokys
Lachenmann, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern
Azguime, Itinerário do Sal
The Spy Collective, Iminami, from mother to smother

I think that it might be better for everyone to just go for one opera at a time, so that those like me who couldn't make any meaningful contribution in sets of ten could just insert two or three operas and then just step back and watch the rest. Or maybe I'm just confused also?

I've scrapped this post as the one preceding it made it redundant.

Yes, I see your points all of you.

And even though it means that that excludes me from playing this game, this game is not my whole life!!

Anyway, even though there's no way I could possibly nominate any single opera to a "top ten" (any more than I could nominate any one of my sons as my "favorite"!!), you are all welcome to listen to all of the thirty odd operas I listed earlier. (Is that "thirty odd" as in "around thirty" or thirty "odd operas"?)

I'm just thinking ... if I set up another thread in which we could vote for the top ten methods of voting for the top ten operas, I could then set up another thread for voting for the top ten methods of voting for the top ten methods of voting for the top ten operas .... You see where I'm heading? We have the opportunity here to solve all our existential problems at a stroke!

I nominate Le Nozze di Figaro.

So this is for top 10 I assume?

I nominate Tristan und Isolde.

A few comments on progress so far in this project, and possible problem areas as I see it.

The idea is to finish up with a list of the 100 top operas ranked by "greatness". Thus, once completed, the No 1 opera will be considered greater than, for example, the No 14 opera, which will be considered greater than the No 67 opera etc. The "slope" of the curve is not an issue (i.e. how rapidly the quality declines at particular points on the 1-100), and nor is the exact ranking of places within any group of, say, 5.

From the deliberations I have seen thus far in this thread, there is a big danger of finishing up merely with a list of one's personal favourites. That would be a weakness because the results will obviously vary according to the membership that actually voted. Somehow or other it's going to be necessary to put aside one's purely personal opinions and to adopt an "objective" hat, by which I mean trying to see things in the round from as neutral a position as possible. Factors that might affect greatness are general popularity currently, popularity down the ages, the degree of influence that works had on later works, the esteem of the composer. If anyone cares to glance at the relevant DDD discussions, they're all there to see.

To illustrate, I prefer Baroque period opera to all later manifestations. Specifically, I prefer Purcell's Dido & Aeneas and Handel's Julius Caesar to most other operas, but I wouldn't nominate either for a top 10 position since I know, or rather sense, that that neither is generally considered to be as great as, say, DG, Le Nozze, Tristan or whatever. I have no problem making that conceptual split. It is a distinction sometimes made in other musical contexts, like one's favourite versus greatest symphonies.

"Greatness" will have to be a personal concept: what each of the participants feels happy with as an all-encapsulating indicator of the merit of individual operas in terms of their contribution to the genre from a general perspective. Which operas would you tell your kids to listen to as your parting shot before leaving this world, bearing in mind that their tastes may not be quite the same as yours? It's not a list of one's personal favourite - or a weighted list of all participants' favourites - unless perchance the two separate concepts of favourite and greatest coincide fortuitously.

In terms of practical methodology and making progress, the way DDD used to deal with things was to have a starting list of 100 works proposed by the Moderator. As the discussion ensued, the list - still in post # 1 - was revised section by section, usually 10 at a time moving down the list from the top 10 (Nos 1-10), then Nos 11-20, etc. The Moderator may express views on ranks just like all the other participants but only the Moderator can modify the list. That list was always contained in post No 1 in the thread. and got modified maybe half a dozen times as the discussion progressed.

The suggestion made earlier that this job of handling the selections might be passed to a non-Staffer as the exercise moves forward to later stages is not one that I would imagine would work well. The Moderator needs to keep a firm grip on the situation, calling time on discussions, and making judgements on the selections before moving on to consideration of the next group. If control is delegated to an ordinary member, all the discipline and consistency goes down the drain.

In view of the above, I would suggest taking the DDD list of 100 greatest operas as the starting point, and let discussion ensue on the merits of the placings for the first group of 10, followed by subsequent groups of 10. Any operas which aren't already included in that list of 100 could be added in the initial stage to broaden the field. It might be extended to say, 150, but eventually the surplus 50 would get whittled away, if it is agreed to finalise on the arbitrary number of 100.

I don't mind admitting that part of my purpose in raising this suggestion of a T-C list of 100 greatest operas was to show you how difficult it is to organise an exercise like this. The various other DDD classical music lists have come under critical scrutiny on other Forums at various times, and I've often thought "you should try to do better". As will be seen, it's a lot easier said than done to pull off a decent list that has involved active participation by members, rather than merely a list which was simply pulled out of a hat.

My interest in opera was quite large at an earlier time but these days I find that it has rather fallen behind other genres. For my part, I'm entirely happy with the nominations and rankings for the first 10 positions as shown in the DDD list of 100 greatest operas, even though (as I said before) they're not my personal favourites. My only involvement with DDD was as a former ordinary member, but now long since lapsed in terms of active participation.

I don't think we should just use the 100 from DDD as our base.
There are other great lists.
I know of a digest of 9 reputable sources - they listed the 93 operas that had been mentioned in all 9 lists. It's a very interesting list of 93 great operas - not too many duds there. They did not provide a ranking. Maybe that list is a better place to start than the DDD list.
Independently of the lists that can be useful to remind people of these operas, I like the 10 by 10 method, and that's what my initial suggestion was. The membership here kind of migrated to 1 by 1 which I don't think is the ideal method, but I went along with it. What interests me the most in this exercise, is the discussions I expect to happen on whether to include this or that, or whether to remove this or that. We're still far from reaching that point, but eventually, we will.
I believe we'll be all content with Gaston's (jhar26) leadership and will respect his decisions. But we non-staffers also have strong opinions so you can't expect that we won't manifest ourselves emphatically. It doesn't mean taking over, it means discussing the issue.

I seem to have lost the plot a bit ... Are we still be invited to nominate?

Anyway I would like to nominate Simon Boccanegra.

Brilliant choice.

Isn't it funny how we're all averting our gaze and tiptoe-ing around Der Ring. ....

So now we have:

Les Troyens
Le Nozze de Figaro
Tristan Und Isolde
Simon Boccanegra
La Boheme
Giulio Cesare
The Ring

Let's just add new nominations to the bottom of the list.

I think the idea is (or at least should be) that we accept an indefinite number of nominations for the top 10, after which those who are willing can assist in discussing and deciding which can stay and which are removed, and then finally in which order the survivors are to be placed.

We've had 8 nominations so far. Therefore there are just 826 active members still to nominate!

I have seen it staged and i will try and investigate it further, but largely my original opinion remains.

Nominations so far.....

Almaviva - Les Troyens
jhar26 - Le Nozze de Figaro
World Violist - Tristan Und Isolde
sospiro - Simon Boccanegra
Elgarian - La Boheme
mamascarlatti - Giulio Cesare
emiellucifuge - The Ring
Chi_townPhilly - Carmen

...two more to go before we'll start the next phase.

Almaviva, i understand your hesitation to continually defend your choice through each phase, but think of it in a positive way. If you resubmit Les Troyens each time based on the reasons youve already stated it is sure to be accepted by general concensus at a time and place that is (democratically) appropriate.

Ive already made my nomination but i would also like to remind everyone of the existence of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten. *hint hint*

Just a reminder - today in the United States the National Opera Week starts... with several events all over the country, so, it's very appropriate that our forum takes the time to produce this list during this celebratory week.