# Opera Cycles, Suites, Trilogies, Quadrilogies, Series?



## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

I was looking on the web on Sunday for cycles, suites etc of operas other than _Der Ring der Nibelungen_.

Wikipedia only listed:
_Du style galant au style méchant_: a for television set of parodies of some opera composers. 
Stockhausen's '_Licht_' cycle of 7 operas
Patria (theatre)
Puccini's: _Il trittico_ Puccini's triptych of_ Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi.
_
Those were evidently composed to be connected.
Someone mentioned the 'Tudor Trilogy' of _Anna Bolena, Roberto Devereux and Maria Stuarda._ I don't know them but probably more loosely connected.

Are there other opera cycles either sensu stricto or sensu lato ?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I am not aware of any other cycles. You could take Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and add what amounts to the sequel, Dvorak's Dimitrij.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Wrong thread


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Liszt: Paraphrases on works by Russian Composers

Czerny: Bel Canto Concertante

Rosemary Tuck (piano)

English Chamber Orchestra, Richard Bonynge


William Vincent Wallace: Opera Fantasies and Paraphrases

Rosemary Tuck (piano) & Richard Bonynge (piano)


Here you go, dive in.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

If one is to connect operas by different composers as cycles, as the original post suggests, then one might consider the following:

Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini)
Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
La mère coupable (Milhaud)


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

Between 1909 and 1924 English composer Joseph Holbrooke (1878-1958) composed an interlinked trilogy of operas based on Welsh mythological tales from _Mabinogion_ under the title _The Cauldron of Annwn_. Good luck trying to find out much more than that.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Gluck: Iphigenie en Aulide, Iphigenie en Tauride

Milhaud has a trilogy on Aeschylus' Oresteia: Agamemnon, Les choephores, Les eumenides, however, only the last one is proper opera, the other two more incidental music. [I have only heard the second one that seems best known and is a rather austere and spooky piece.]

There is a large number of baroque opere serie (up to Rossini) drawing from Tasso's Jerusalem liberated and Ariosto's Orlando furioso. All the Tancredi, Armida, Ronaldo operas are based on the latter, all the Alcina/Ruggiero, Orlando, Ariodante/Ginevra (not sure if and how they could ordered into series, I am not familiar with this literature).

You could also take Les Troyens, Dido and Aeneas, Idomeno, Ritorno d'ulisse, Paride ed Elena as "Troy cycle" or "Homerian cycle"


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Milhaud also did _3 Operas Minutes_ (1927).

The Welsh composer Paul Corfield Godfrey has composed a cycle of _4 operas on Tolkien's Silmarillion etc._: 1; Fëanor, 2; Beren and Lúthien, 3; The Children of Húrin and 4; The Fall of Gondolin

https://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/956-Interview-with-Paul-Corfield-Godfrey.php


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

From Wikipedia:

_Merlin is the last of the operas of Isaac Albéniz. It is in three acts, set to a libretto written in English by Francis Money-Coutts, 5th Baron Latymer.

The opera was written between 1897 and 1902, the first of a projected trilogy of Arthurian operas commissioned by the librettist. After completing Merlin, Albéniz worked on the second part of the trilogy, Lancelot, in 1902-03, but broke off work and did not complete it before his death in 1909. He did not even begin the final part, Guinevere._


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Taplow said:


> If one is to connect operas by different composers as cycles, as the original post suggests, then one might consider the following:
> 
> Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini)
> Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
> La mère coupable (Milhaud)


Did I connect operas by different composers as cycles?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Do Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci count?


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

FrankE said:


> Did I connect operas by different composers as cycles?


No, you didn't. I misread. Sorry about that.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Wagner's *Lohengrin* and *Tristan und Isolde* belong to the Arthurian legend world (the Arthurian Universe?).


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Taplow said:


> No, you didn't. I misread. Sorry about that.


It might have read like I was linking all the different suites.

I don't know enough about them [Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini), Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart), La mère coupable (Milhaud)] and I've only seen the Rossini and Mozart, so do they have a common theme, character, archetype, trope, plot device or whatnot?


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

nina foresti said:


> Do Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci count?


I don't know enough about them.
Just looked up Wikipedia and it said "Opera companies have frequently staged Pagliacci with Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni, a double bill known colloquially as "Cav and Pag", so they would be a de-facto suite.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

There’s Orff’s Trionfi, but they’re not really considered operas, more scenic cantatas.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

FrankE said:


> I don't know enough about them.
> Just looked up Wikipedia and it said "Opera companies have frequently staged Pagliacci with Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni, a double bill known colloquially as "Cav and Pag", so they would be a de-facto suite.


I once hear a *Cav and Pag * with Cab and Pav! :lol: :lol:


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

FrankE said:


> I don't know enough about them [Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini), Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart), La mère coupable (Milhaud)] and I've only seen the Rossini and Mozart, so do they have a common theme, character, archetype, trope, plot device or whatnot?


They are from a trilogy of plays by Pierre de Beaumarchais.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

This is probably quite a stretch for the topic but I can't help posting this. Also the only place to get all three of Rachmaninoff's operas on DVD. There is a separate, and much better, recording of the Miserly Knight, though.



> *Rachmaninov represents the waning of Romanticism in Russia yet, even by Russian standards, he was extremely fatalistic. His three one-act operas with libretti based on writings by Pushkin and Dante are linked by their theme: fate follows in the footsteps of sin, whether it be a matter of jealous murder, greed or illicit passion. This triptych is a production of la Monnaie and is conducted by Mikhail Tatarnikov and directed by Kirsten Dehlholm.*


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

MAS said:


> Wagner's *Lohengrin* and *Tristan und Isolde* belong to the Arthurian legend world (the Arthurian Universe?).


And Parsifal overlaps as well. Lohengrin is Parsifal's son, although the Realm of the Grail in Lohengrin's narration seems more otherworldly than the Castle in Parsifal.


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## Dick Johnson (Apr 14, 2020)

Donizetti's Tudor Queens operas: Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux, Anna Bolena. He didn't write them with the intent of creating a trilogy but many refer to them as such now.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I think you said you said besides Wagner's Ring, but this is an interesting one and I think Woodduck has also (elsewhere) mentioned a connection of Parsifal with the Ring.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> Gluck: Iphigenie en Aulide, Iphigenie en Tauride
> 
> Milhaud has a trilogy on Aeschylus' Oresteia: Agamemnon, Les choephores, Les eumenides, however, only the last one is proper opera, the other two more incidental music. [I have only heard the second one that seems best known and is a rather austere and spooky piece.]
> 
> ...


Just to be clear, Tancredi/Armida/Rinaldo operas are based on the Tasso Gerusalemme liberata, whereas Alcina/Orlando/Ariodante come from Orlando Furioso.

N.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Oper Berlin has a cycle of Meyerbeer.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Meyerbeer Smith said:


> Oper Berlin has a cycle of Meyerbeer.


Not surprising as Meyerbeer was born near Berlin.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> I think you said you said besides Wagner's Ring, but this is an interesting one and I think Woodduck has also (elsewhere) mentioned a connection of Parsifal with the Ring.


In a nutshell: Parsifal is a Siegfried who succeeds.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The Conte said:


> Just to be clear, Tancredi/Armida/Rinaldo operas are based on the Tasso Gerusalemme liberata, whereas Alcina/Orlando/Ariodante come from Orlando Furioso.


Thanks for the correction; I guess a confused latter/former, not the literature, because Orlando is the easiest one to place.


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