# Top 69 Operas



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Top 69 Operas

I worked on this list on-and-off for about a year and would appreciate any feedback. A few caveats I'll say upfront: the first is that it was primarily written for an audience I knew wouldn't be terribly familiar with opera, so its purpose is mostly as a kind of laymen's introduction. Second caveat is that I worked more on the writing than trying to figure out the "best order," so I don't want to debate the rankings too much. The rankings themselves are a mix of what I perceive as the overall critical standing of these works (thanks to lists like those on here and Digital Dream Door) and my own preferences. Again, I didn't think too deeply about it; I was more focused on trying to find the best way to synopsize what makes these operas great in ~75 words. 

One final caveat is that if you're asking "why isn't X on the list?" the chances are either that I haven't seen/heard it (I still haven't seen/heard between 1/3 and 1/2 of TC's Top 272) or it just barely didn't make it.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> One final caveat is that if you're asking "why isn't X on the list?" the chances are either that I haven't seen/heard it (I still haven't seen/heard between 1/3 and 1/2 of TC's Top 272) or it just barely didn't make it.


This, Andromeda e Perseo, is not in that TC list, but do try it, if you feel there are too few pre-Romantic works.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I definitely need to listen to more pre-romantic operas outside of Mozart, Handel, Purcell, and Monteverdi. I guess my bias is that I'm not a big fan of opera seria as a genre and it was so dominant before the romantic era. Were it not for Handel's melodic and dramatic sensibilities I wouldn't even like his operas as much as I do. Do you know if the CD version of that M. Haydn opera comes with a libretto?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Do you know if the CD version of that M. Haydn opera comes with a libretto?


Alas, I don't know; I haven't got a physical CD of that; I just got only the FLAC files through other means. If you really need access to the libretto of any opera you listen to, there's another I would recommend that I know for sure comes with a libretto in its CD version. It's a "serenata", like Mozart's Il rè pastore K.208, (which was almost contemporaneous with it). It in certain moments reminds me of the "Dulcissimum convivium" from Mozart's Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento K.243, (which was also almost contemporaneous). But I think that Haydn has an unique "ethereal" quality with use of harmony, which creates a different "atmosphere" from Mozart's; it's as though he takes things from the old and fuses them to Classicism in a different way from Mozart's.

The harmonies in the "Quel ruscelleto", for instance (@1:21)-





_"Quel ruscelletto che l'onde chiare or or col mare confonderà, nel mormorio del foco mio colle sue sponde parlando va.
Quell'augelletto ch'arde d'amore, e serba al piede, ma non al core la libertà, in sua favella per la sua bella, che ancor non riede, piangendo sta.
This little brook, whose limpid waves shall soon be mingled with the sea, converses with its banks, murmuring about my fire.
This little bird, burning with love, whose feet know freedom, but not its heart, weeps and laments in its song for the beautiful lover who has not returned."_





"Amor, che nasce con la speranza"


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