# The most important opera of the last century



## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

What would you name as the most important opera of the last century and in what sense? I mean, it could the most important work for you personally or in the history of opera or whatever.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Berg's *_Wozzeck_ - it was (one of?) the first pantonal operas. I was a teenager when I first heard it & I instantly connected with it. I still have that Berlin Classics recording. I like the drama, passion and intensity of the music and story. It was definitely one of the great operas of the C20th, although my knowledge of the repertoire is not huge...


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

OK. I think most of us would agree that Wozzeck is one of the most important operas of the last century and it seems to mean a lot to you personally as well. Other suggestions?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Unfortunately I suspect that 20th century operas that I like - Akhnaten, War and Peace, Love for Three Oranges, Madama Butterfly, Fanciulla del West, Rosenkavalier, Salome are probably not Important. I don't know and would be interested in the opinions of others. But I love them anyway.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Elektra. It's where it all begins, where all recent achievements in composing techniques were poured into operatic form and resulted with masterpiece. I belive it influenced all forthcoming composers of opera, even those who are more identified with Schoenberg movement.


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

Dear Aramis, Elektra is the opera that I had in mind from the beginning, though I didn't want to blurt it out. Still, there is room for other opinions. No right or wrong answers here!


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## Sebastien Melmoth (Apr 14, 2010)

*Wozzeck* gets my vote.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Try the operas by Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, and Berg. I don't like categories such as THE best and THE most important one. Several works are good and important, there is no real hierarchy, I'd say, they all have their strenghts and weaknesses.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Unfortunately I suspect that 20th century operas that I like - Akhnaten, War and Peace, Love for Three Oranges, Madama Butterfly, Fanciulla del West, Rosenkavalier, Salome are probably not Important...

Are you mad!?! Madame Butterfly, Der Rosenkavalier, Salome not "important"? Then how do you measure "importance"?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Unfortunately I suspect that 20th century operas that I like - Akhnaten, War and Peace, Love for Three Oranges, Madama Butterfly, Fanciulla del West, Rosenkavalier, Salome are probably not Important...
> 
> Are you mad!?! Madame Butterfly, Der Rosenkavalier, Salome not "important"? Then how do you measure "importance"?


Well I secretly agree. This was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Importance here seemed to be measured in terms of how much they influenced subsequent composers and how revolutionary (read "difficult") they were.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

mamascarlatti said:


> Well I secretly agree. This was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Importance here seemed to be measured in terms of how much they influenced subsequent composers and how revolutionary (read "difficult") they were.


That's one way of gauging importance, not the only way.

Some operas were divisors of waters... like Gluck's Orfée et Euridice, or Wagner's Tristan und Isolde... or Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande...

But it's not the only way to gauge importance. An opera may be important for being a faithful representative of a style or subgenre, for being extremely well composed and high quality, for being very popular thus contributing to the survival of the genre, and so forth.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Interestingly enough, there are only two operas composed in the 20th century to make the list of the _20 Most Frequently Performed Operas_. Both were written by Puccini: _Turandot_ and _Madame Butterfly_... which stands at the number one position... with _La Boheme_... written just shy of the 20th century... in the number two position. Personally I couldn't care whether Puccini is not as cutting edge and "difficult" as any number of other composers. He simply wrote some damn good music... and a hell of a lot of others seem to agree... even 100 years after the fact.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

(Surreptitiously) brings to mind a quote that I read somewhere on the net when the topic of a conversation between Shostakovich & Britten turned to Puccini - "He wrote some very good operas, but terrible music!"...


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

My personal favorites among the operas of the 20th century would include:

*Puccini*- _Madame Butterfly, La fanciulla del West, Tosca, La rondine, Gianni Schicchi..._
*Antonín Dvořák*- _Rusalka_
*Richard Strauss*- _Elektra, Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Intermezzo, Daphne_
*Claude Debussy*- _Pelléas et Mélisande_
*Shostakovitch*- _The Nose, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District_
*Kurt Weill*- _Die Dreigroschenoper_
*Leoš Janáček*- The Cunning Little Vixen, The Excursions of Mr. Broucek
*Benjamin Britten*- _The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Grimes, Death in Venice_
*Bohuslav Martinu*- _Three Fragments from the Opera Juliette_ (admittedly Kozena performing doesn't hurt)
*Philip Glass*- _Einstein on the Beach, Akhnaten, Satyagraha_
*Osvaldo Golijov*- _Ainadamar_
*Daniel Catan*- _Rappacini's Daughter, Florencia in the Amazon_
*Zemlinski*- _A Florentine Tragedy, Der Traumgörge_
*Korngold* - _Die tote Stadt, Violanta, Die Kathrin, Das Wunder der Heliane_
*Schreker*- _Die Gezeichneten_
*Braunfels* - _Die Vogel_ 
*Goldschmidt*- _Der Gewaltige Hahnrei_

Obviously, I quite like all those decadent late Viennese.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

(Surreptitiously) brings to mind a quote that I read somewhere on the net when the topic of a conversation between Shostakovich & Britten turned to Puccini - "He wrote some very good operas, but terrible music!"...

One might suspect mere envy. Neither... as good as they were... could ever write something as memorable and magical as this:











Of course it never hurts to have a singer like Maria Callas wrenching forth every last bit of emotion possible out of the score.


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## Mayerl (May 5, 2008)

Britten should talk!!!!


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