# Most Beautiful Operas



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Tell us what you find to be the most beautiful operas. Not looking for absolutes or arguments here. Each of us may have different ideas of what are beautiful operas. But I am hoping to learn of some new ones this way. 

Here are the two most beautiful operas that I am familiar with:

Mascagni: L'amico Fritz

Bellini: La Sonnambula


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte, Il Re Pastore
Puccini: Suor Angelica, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

In terms of the sheer number of beautiful moments, I find the following hard to beat:

Mozart, _Così fan tutte_
Wagner, _Parsifal_
Humperdinck, _Hänsel und Gretel_
Debussy, _Pelléas et Mélisande_
Glass, _Akhnaten_


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

For now:

Mascagni: Iris
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Strauss: Daphne
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Montemezzi: L'amore dei tre re


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well, there are so many... 

Going now for the "new ones..." mentioned above, maybe this opera is not known to some fans:










The composer, Leoni, was one of many Italian composers writing verismo style opera. _L'oracolo_ was premiered in London, back in 1905, with a great star, the baritone Antonio Scotti, and it was also offered at the MET, where it received several stagings between 1915 and 1933.

It's a short opera, set in San Francisco's Chinatown, in 1900. You can read the synopsis here:

http://opera.stanford.edu/Leoni/Oracolo/synopsis.html

In youtube, we can find the version of the CD above, that it's a nice (and "beautiful" ) hearing indeed:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Madama Butterfly
Turandot
La Boheme
Eugene Onegin


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

schigolch said:


> Well, there are so many...
> 
> Going now for the "new ones..." mentioned above, maybe this opera is not known to some fans:
> 
> ...


Well, schigolch, the plot of this grisly little melo is something less than beautiful! But that's verismo. I shall just have to set the music to playing.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Lohengrin, Tristan, Aida, La Traviata, Cavalaria Rusticana, Lucia, Norma, Il Trovatore, Les Troyens. I am not basing this on stories but the music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

For the deepest quality of beauty, which I will call spiritual because it embraces even the depths of pain and transfigures it, I have to choose _Parsifal._

Behind that I'll nominate, in no particular order, _Lohengrin_ (the formalized beauty of a medieval tapestry), _Pelleas et Melisande_ (the beauty of understatement), _Cosi fan Tutte_ (the music is more beautiful than the story merits), _La Boheme_ (the peach-skinned beauty of youth), _Fidelio_ (beauty more than skin-deep), and _ Les Troyens_ (mainly Part 2, which is better musically and, well, more beautiful).


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Don Carlo/ La Traviata/ Norma/ Lucia/ Manon Lescaut/ Tosca / Thais, will do it for now.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Pugg said:


> Don Carlo/ La Traviata/ Norma/ Lucia/ Manon Lescaut/ Tosca / Thais, will do it for now.


I forgot about Thais Regarding Parsifal, I almost never listen to on disc, but live it was one of the great musical events of my life.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I forgot about Thais Regarding Parsifal, I almost never listen to on disc, but live it was one of the great musical events of my life.


Has Seattle Opera done it?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Has Seattle Opera done it?


OH YES! After the ground up renovation of the opera house they chose Parsifal to be the opera to open the new theater. It was a truly astounding production and got great press in Opera News.You are aware that we are after The Met and Bayreuth we are likely the third most famous Wagner company in the world. People come from all over the world for our Ring every 4 years. It will be interesting to see if we can maintain our position after Speight Jenkins retired and we have a new director.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> OH YES! After the ground up renovation of the opera house they chose Parsifal to be the opera to open the new theater. It was a truly astounding production and got great press in Opera News.You are aware that we are after The Met and Bayreuth we are likely the third most famous Wagner company in the world. People come from all over the world for our Ring every 4 years. It will be interesting to see if we can maintain our position after Speight Jenkins retired and we have a new director.


I lived in rain city from 1982 to 1996 and saw the _Ring_ twice - the first production, I believe. I don't remember the names of any of the cast, but it was tremendously exciting after years of listening to recordings. My only experiences of Wagner in the theater prior to that had been three at the Met in the '70s: a_ Parsifal,_ a _Tristan_, and a _Gotterdammerung_, the latter two with Nilsson. I enjoyed the Seattle _Ring_ more than any of those.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

schigolch said:


> Well, there are so many...
> 
> Going now for the "new ones..." mentioned above, maybe this opera is not known to some fans:
> 
> ...


Thanks for posting this! I'm enjoying it - lots of good choruses. Reminds me that I need to investigate verismo / post-Verdian Italian opera.

EDIT: Here's the English / Italian libretto: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23413409M/L'_oracolo


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## MalariaMan (Aug 30, 2016)

The last scene of Aida and the first chords of Tristan und Isolde.

It's great to see a few of Mascagni's operas recognised here. They are indeed beautiful pieces, if not always dramatically coherent.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Gluck - _Alceste_
Mozart - _Idomeneo_; _La clemenza di Tito_
Méhul - _Uthal_
Almost any of Rossini's opere serie. Even weak operas like _Ricciardo e Zoraide _or _Bianca e Falliero _have jaw-dropping moments of beauty. Let's say _Maometto II_, _Zelmira _and _Semiramide_.
Massenet - _Grisélidis_; _Cendrillon_; _Ariane_; _Amadis_
Wagner - _Parsifal_
Rimsky-K - _Sadko_
Strauss - _Daphne_
Britten - _A Midsummer Night's Dream_
Glass - _Satyagraha_; _Akhnaten_


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## adrien (Sep 12, 2016)

Leoncavallo's Pagliacci has possibly the most gut-wrenching tenor aria, after you sob out your spleen it's hard to go past Carmen, and La Traviata.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

adrien said:


> Leoncavallo's Pagliacci has possibly the most gut-wrenching tenor aria, after you sob out your spleen it's hard to go past Carmen, and La Traviata.


Did you ever watch Violetta dying? Try to keep it dry then.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Vaughan Williams - Sir John in Love
Nielsen - Maskarade
Berlioz - Les Troyens
Janacek - Cunning Little Vixen
Mozart - Marriage of Figaro
Rossini - La Cenerentola


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## Buoso (Aug 10, 2016)

I would say Il Trittico as a whole is extremely beautiful. Each part is unique but individually has a spark and a life to it telling its story that works particularly well.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Buoso said:


> I would say Il Trittico as a whole is extremely beautiful. Each part is unique but individually has a spark and a life to it telling its story that works particularly well.


Each his or her own choice but really, no competition for Butterfly and Tosca .


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## andrzejmakal (Jun 5, 2014)

Oniegin, Tosca, La Traviata

Best


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Verdi: Jerusalem


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Verdi: Jerusalem


Above all your other operas?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Pugg said:


> Above all your other operas?


Oh no. I already listed L'amico Fritz and La Sonnambula. Also I was thinking a different kind of beautiful that would largely exclude comedy operas and most tragic operas.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

La Boheme. Watched it last night with a large glass of Courvoisier. Mum's Favourite. 
:angel:


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Pugg said:


> Did you ever watch Violetta dying? Try to keep it dry then.


Not at all like Charles Dickens' _Old Curiosity Shop_, of which Oscar Wilde said: "You'd need a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears of laughter"


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Pugg said:


> Each his or her own choice but really, no competition for Butterfly and Tosca .


Perhaps _Tosca_ has a few too many moments of violence and horror to count amongst the "most beautiful operas". Even its most beautiful moments are shot through (pardon pun) with darkness - from Floria Tosca's jealousy (Act I) to Cavaradossi's painful remniscences in "E lucevan le stelle".


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> Not at all like Charles Dickens' _Old Curiosity Shop_, of which Oscar Wilde said: "You'd need a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears of laughter"


Oscar Wild wasn't always right.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2016)

Pugg said:


> Oscar Wild wasn't always right.


What about this one? "Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories. "


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Traverso said:


> What about this one? "Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories. "


I am sure that Oscar would loved La Traviata, unreachable love and that kind of stuff .


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2016)

Pugg said:


> I am sure that Oscar would loved La Traviata, unreachable love and that kind of stuff .


That kind of stuff............:lol:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Wagner---All
Gounod---Faust
Rossini----William Tell
Boito----Mefistofele
Donizetti----Lucia


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