The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky is one of the foremost masterpieces of 20th century Neoclassicism. It's intentionally a period piece, complete with harpsichord-led recitatives and references to the operatic canon from Monteverdi to Mozart to Donizetti. Everything is excellent, from the music (naturally) to the libretto by WH Auden, which strikes a good balance between literary sophistication and the naivety that the simple morality fable of the subject requires.

The version conducted by the composer has an excellent cast, but this version on Youtube is available on DVD, in far better quality.

 

Purcell's operas, Dido and Aeneas is the most famous. And von Weber's Oberon (Gardiner recording)

 

Samuel Barber's Vanessa. There's some beautiful music in it, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1958.
George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

More recently, there's Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath, and Aldridge's Elmer Gantry.

Here's a link for you to explore more: http://usopera.com/operas/index.html

 

Peter Grimes and Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten.

 

And Turn of the Screw

Also Benjamin's Written on Skin, and Handel's Acis and Galatea, Hercules, and Semele. Solomon and Athalia are oratorios but they have ravishing music.

 

The Lily of Killarney by Julius Benedict
Maritana by Vincent Wallace
The Bohemian Girl by Michael Balfe

 

Menotti's "The Consul" -- a masterpiece.

 

Weill - Street Scene. Not really an opera, but one of the best-loved Weill theatre works. Centres around a day in the lives of a melting pot working-class community in New York.

Ades - Powder Her Face. An account of the pathetic downfall of a pre-WWII socialite (allegedly inspired by the Duchess of Argyll's less-than-discreet behaviour and subsequent infamous court case). When listening you almost feel you could be spying on the lady's privacy through the keyhole of her hotel wardrobe. This is a remarkable debut opera for a composer who was still in his 20s at the time.

Walton - The Bear. A pithy one-acter after the Checkhov short story.

Britten - Death in Venice. A real tour de force - Britten was so committed to it he delayed undergoing essential heart surgery until it was finished. His final opera, and he died only three years later.

 

Walton Troilus and Cressida

Previn A Streetcar Named Desire

Delius A Village Romeo and Juliet

Vaughan Williams Sir John in Love

 

Mark Adamo ~ Little Women

John Adams ~ The Death of Klinghoffer / Nixon in China / The Flowering Tree / Doctor Atomic

Aaron Copland ~ The Tender Land

Carlisle Floyd ~ Susannah

Philip Glass ~ Akhnaten / The Juniper Tree / Satyagraha

Jake Heggie ~ Moby Dick

Martin David Levy ~ Mourning Becomes Electra

Douglas Moore ~ The Ballade of Baby Doe

Virgil Thomson ~ Four Saints in Three Acts

 

Thanks all

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Bernard Herrmann - Wuthering Heights

Holst - Savitri

Britten - The Rape of Lucretia

Rutland Boughton - The Immortal Hour

 

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I always liked the Unicorn recording of Herrmann doing his opera; it's just the singers that chaffed on me. There's some absolutely lovely stuff in it. Again, too bad Janet Baker. . .

 

Quadrophenia

 

"We are the Mods! We are the Mods! We are! We are! We are the Mods!"

-- Or at least, that's what it sounded like to me with the marbels in their mouths.

 

Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
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GregMitchell: I always liked the Unicorn recording of Herrmann doing his opera; it's just the singers that chaffed on me.
Is that the one with a soprano with worse diction than Dame Joan on a bad day. I defy anyone to make out a single word!

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. They are kind of separated-at-birth on that one-- singing with all the floridity and drape of a tracter tarp.

 

I was happy to see Moore's Ballade of Baby Doe on the list. That's one of my favorites. Vaughan-Williams, too, though I prefer Riders to the Sea to Sir John in Love. Both of these VW operas are worthwhile, in my opinion.

I'd also like to add Thomson - The Mother of Us All
Daugherty - Jackie O
Bernstein - A Quiet Place
Bliss - The Olympians
Purcell - The Fairy Queen
Tippett - King Priam

 

György Ligeti - Le Grand Macabre (Salonen)

The original libretto was written in German and then translated into English, French, Italian, Hungarian and Danish.

Sibylle Ehlert · Laura Claycomb · Charlotte Hellekant · Jard van Nes · Derek Lee Ragin
Graham Clark · Philharmonia Orchestra · Esa-Pekka Salonen (Conductor)

 

Adding to the ones already mentioned (limited to ones I heard on CD).

John Blow: Venus and Adonis (1683) Considered to be the first opera in English
John Gay: The Beggar's Opera (1728)
Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Gilbert and Sullivan: Mikado (1885)
Kern and Hammerstein: Show Boat (1927) Hmm, may be not an opera?
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Pilgrim's Progress (1951)
Michael Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage (1955)
Benjamin Britten: Midsummer Night's Dream (1960)
Michael Tippett: King Priam (1962)
Benjamin Britten: Curlew River (1964)
Ned Rorem: Miss Julie (1965)
Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach (1976)
Oliver Knussen: Where the Wild Things Are (1984)
John Adams: Nixon in China (1988)
Thomas Ades: Tempest (2004)

 

And Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur. Powerful stuff.

Turnage: Anna Nicole

 

Speaking about "New Complexity" composers, there are several operas written in English.

Arguably, the leading examples is Ferneyhough's "Shadowtime" with a libretto by Charles Bernstein:

 

Two of my favorites -
Jack Beeson's Lizzie Borden - two parts -

Jake Heggie's Moby Dick
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365112413

These have English subtitles, which I need as much with operas in English as in any other language.

 

It's interesting that at this point in the thread, only one person has recommended Porgy and Bess. Personally, I can't stand Gershwin, but there was a time when Porgie and Bess would've been considered one of the great English operas of all time.

Although I haven't had a chance to hear the whole opera yet, I much prefer Scott Joplin's Treemonisha to Porgie and Bess if we're talking about an opera that tries to chart the black experience in the US.

The only other "true" opera in English that I kind of like is Adams' Nixon in China. But even that one tends to lose me after the first act.

Now, if you guys would allow me to expand the definition of "opera" just a little bit… I'd have to say my all time favorite would be Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

Sweeney Todd is, frankly, spectacular! It's equal parts brilliant storytelling, with great musical numbers and is hilarious as hell. And although it did technically start life as a musical, I've seen that it has been staged as an opera by several opera companies around United States the last couple years. It's easy to see why though, there's very little unsung dialogue in Sweeney Todd and the storyline is pure operatic melodrama.

 

I couldn't agree with you more about "Sweeney Todd", a total masterpiece.
In fact it has been produced in concert version at the NY City Opera and other opera venues. Stephen Sondheim is quoted as once saying words to the effect that if it is produced in an opera venue, it's an opera. If it is produced in a theater, it's musical theater.

 

Another couple I inexplicably overlooked:

Tippett - The Knot Garden

Maxwell Davies - The Lighthouse.

 

My Beginner's Guide to Classical Music largely ignored Opera, for good reason.

For those unfamiliar with Classical music, opera is a giant obstacle: It's long form, usually in a foreign language, and it has those awful, bellowing, shrieking opera singers.

I sneaked a few Opera Overtures into the list, but eventually had to address opera from a novice's standpoint.

I decided that presenting comic operas, and operas in English was the best introduction, followed by a couple of classics (I used a couple of G&S operettas, Porgy and Bess, followed by Don Giovanni, and Tristan Und Isolde, followed quickly by The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute and Fidelio).

Frankly, unless you speak Italian, French, German, and Russian then chances are that you're going to have to choose between watching the performer or staring up at subtitles ("Supertitles"? "Surtitles"?) because English was a little late to the ball when it comes to opera history.

And I, too, was very late to the opera party. I was well into my 30s before I could stomach opera. So, I'm far from being an opera expert. I had to actually do a bit of research to find English language operas.

But I AM very familiar with the G&S catalog, having musical directed ALL of them, and directed a couple.

Gilbert & Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance
Gilbert & Sullivan: The Mikado
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess

Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes
Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Samuel Barber: Vanessa
Philip Glass: 1000 Airplanes on the Roof
Igor Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
Carlisle Floyd: Susannah

You can add the rest of the G&S catalog to this, although finding listenable recordings is a task. Most are "old school" singing with natural auditorium reverb, and, frankly, Sullivan's arrangements were (and still are) quite unadventurous and stodgy. The Pirates of Penzance is an exception to this: The Joseph Papp production was a modern production and new orchestral arrangements were commissioned.

There's also a lot of Broadway opera (and, frankly, there's a fine line between Opera/Operetta and Musicals anyway), that is, shows that bridge that gap: West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Showboat, Passion, many of the Rogers & Hammerstein offerings (Carousel, South Pacific), The Most Happy Fella, The Threepenny Opera, Carmen Jones, Pacific Overtures, Kismet, Candide, A Little Night Music, and Show Boat. Some might include some of the Andrew Lloyd Webber bubble-gum-pop-opera musicals, but I tend to ignore them; although he often utilizes classical singing, his compositional style is pure pop, with occasional classical 'touches', as though that gives them legitimacy.

 

. . . But I AM very familiar with the G&S catalog, having musical directed ALL of them, and directed a couple.

Gilbert & Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance
Gilbert & Sullivan: The Mikado
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess

Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes
Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Samuel Barber: Vanessa
Philip Glass: 1000 Airplanes on the Roof
Igor Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
Carlisle Floyd: Susannah

You can add the rest of the G&S catalog to this, although finding listenable recordings is a task. Most are "old school" singing with natural auditorium reverb, and, frankly, Sullivan's arrangements were (and still are) quite unadventurous and stodgy. The Pirates of Penzance is an exception to this: The Joseph Papp production was a modern production and new orchestral arrangements were commissioned.. . . .

My wife and I just finished up a Virtual Choir production of an excerpt ("Hail, Poetry") from Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance using a couple dozen friends. Well, 22 others . . . we're in it as well.

They all sang to a guide track while watching video of me conducting. I created a 'virtual orchestra' using the original 1879 arrangements which I supplemented with a harp, piano, and some brass.

 

The Loyola Opera Theatre Presents Susannah, by Carlisle Floyd
For starters.

 

Samuel Barber's Vanessa Quintet
Steber,Elias.Resnick,Gedda,Tozzi,Cehanovsky 1958