# Opera Cycles besides the Ring.



## FleshRobot (Jan 27, 2014)

What are some other Opera Cycles besides _Der Ring des Nibelungen_? I could only find _Licht_, _Patria_ and Robert Ashley's trilogy. Ruggero Leoncavallo and Isaac Albeniz also tried to compose opera trilogies modeled after the Ring, but they only completed one opera each.


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## RockyIII (Jan 21, 2019)

There is Puccini's _Il trittico_, a collection of three one act operas, _Il tabarro_, _Suor Angelica_, and _Gianni Schicchi_. The only link between them that I know if is that they all deal with a common theme of the concealment of a death.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

The only thing I know that comes anywhere near the Ring (but is still a long way off) is Donizetti's three queen operas (Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux), which are loosely connected in English history. Here is an interesting article on the Tudor Trilogy.

If we toss in Donizetti's Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth (Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle), then we have four operas by Donizetti on Tudor queens.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven almost wrote an opera cycle. After the success of _Fidelio _in 1814, he made sketches for _Fidelio Reconsidered: Divorce and Alimony_ but perhaps fortunately didn't follow through with the idea.


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## FleshRobot (Jan 27, 2014)

Here are some other ones:
The Cauldron of Annwn by Joseph Holbrooke
Zululand by Harry Lawrence Freeman
Homerische Welt by August Bungert

Old gramophone recordings of excerpts from The Cauldron of Annwn exist. I can't find any recordings of Homerische Welt, and Zululand has never been performed. I highly doubt any of those is a lost masterpiece, but I'm still curious about them.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Germaine Tailleferre's _Du style galant au style méchant_ is a cycle of four one-act chamber operas parodying four different opera styles. It premiered in 1955.

Perhaps John Cage's Europeras I-V deserves mention, though there's not really a set plot or such and are very much in line with his aleatoric approach. The Los Angeles Philharmonic performed Europeras 1 and 2 in November (review).

_Les Troyen_ can be considered two operas, and historically they have been performed on separate nights or even without the other. Berlioz himself didn't live to see _Les Troyens à Carthage_ performed, but _La prise de Troie_ was staged in his lifetime. And the first performance of the whole was done at Karlsruhe on consecutive nights. But this wasn't intended to be separate works, it's just long.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Debatable, but Milhaud's Trois Operas Minutes, though it is probably mainly a formal experiment.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Benjamin Britten's three church parables (_Curlew River_, _The Burning Fiery Furnace_ and _The Prodigal Son_]. Not a trilogy in the strictest sense but with regards to Britten's dramatic works they were written in succession, have the same librettist (William Plomer) and very similar chamber forces. The term 'church parable' relates to the fact they are ideally performed in a church or a similarly modest-sized venue, therefore requiring relatively little staging.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

We could string Rossini's Barber of Seville together with Mozarts Marriage of Figaro. Even better if same singers in both. I think there is even a third part to the story that was never set to music.


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

Fritz Kobus said:


> We could string Rossini's Barber of Seville together with Mozarts Marriage of Figaro. Even better if same singers in both. I think there is even a third part to the story that was never set to music.


There's Mercadante's _I due Figaro_ and Corigliano's _The Ghosts of Versailles_.


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## FleshRobot (Jan 27, 2014)

Fritz Kobus said:


> We could string Rossini's Barber of Seville together with Mozarts Marriage of Figaro. Even better if same singers in both. I think there is even a third part to the story that was never set to music.


Darius Milhaud adapted the last play, _La mère coupable_, into an opera. Too bad the same characters have different voice types in the operas, though. Jules Massenet also composed an opera, _Chérubin_, that takes place after _The Marriage of Figaro_, based on a play by one of it's librettists.


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## Rangstrom (Sep 24, 2010)

gellio said:


> There's Mercadante's _I due Figaro_ and Corigliano's _The Ghosts of Versailles_.


Carafa also wrote an opera on "I Due Figaro"; both are interesting works. I seem to recall that Milhaud wrote or was planning to write something based on Figaro, part 3.


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## FleshRobot (Jan 27, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> _Les Troyen_ can be considered two operas, and historically they have been performed on separate nights or even without the other. Berlioz himself didn't live to see _Les Troyens à Carthage_ performed, but _La prise de Troie_ was staged in his lifetime. And the first performance of the whole was done at Karlsruhe on consecutive nights. But this wasn't intended to be separate works, it's just long.


_War and Peace_ by Prokofiev is the opposite, in a sense. It was originally intended by the composer to be performed over two evenings, but this rarely happened, if ever.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

"Die Zauberflöte" sequel =>


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Andrew Kenneth said:


> "Die Zauberflöte" sequel =>


www.amazon.com/dp/B01I05IUH6/


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Talking of Mozart's _Figaro_. The three Da Ponte operas are often seen as a set.

N.


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## Rangstrom (Sep 24, 2010)

Rutland Boughton (I have a recording of his opera The Immortal Hour) did Wagner one better by composing a cycle of 5 operas on the Arthurian legend. I've haven't heard a note of any of them.


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Yes ... I keep waiting for a modern composer to finally create "Le Colpevole Madre"! Are there none with the audacity to take this challenge on? (Or perhaps a version has been created somewhere, though I haven't heard of it.)


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

There are the various forms of sequels to Die Zauberflote. Emanuel Schikanader wrote the libretto to "Das Labyrinth", though sadly Mozart was not available. And of course Goethe attempted to write a sequel to Zauberflote as well.


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## FleshRobot (Jan 27, 2014)

Darius Milhaud made a version, but it isn't part of the standard repertoire. Other operas have been influenced by the play as well, you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guilty_Mother#Operas


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