The 100 greatest* operas

(*allegedly)

At least according to a book first published in 1957.

In fairness to Henry W. Simon, he doesn’t call them the greatest operas, but the genre lacks an AFI 100 list — or even the equivalent of an IMDb ranking. Some journalists have ventured to name the top 10, 20, or even 50 operas. Few have dared to contemplate triple digits.

But what I remember most from my childhood was Simon’s 100 Great Operas and their Stories. One of the things I love most about it is how much it is, at certain points, a product of its time. It has many of the predictable highlights: your Manon Lescauts (both Massenet and Puccini), your consumptive Parisians (both Verdi and Puccini), your Ring cycles and your Mozart/Da Ponte triptychs. But there are also some complete left-field choices that make this book A Product of Its Time, moreso than any other list I’ve found. It’s those less-obvious choices I’m looking most forward to diving into with this project — including some that I’ll be hearing for the first time.

Follow along with the list below — presented in chronological order. Operas with episodes will be hyperlinked as they go live.

  1. Monteverdi: L’Orfeo (1607)

  2. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (1689)

  3. Handel: Giulio Cesare (1724)

  4. Pergolesi: La Serva Padrona (1733)

  5. Gluck: Orpheus and Eurydice (1762)

  6. Gluck: Alceste (1767)

  7. Mozart: Bastien und Bastienne (1768)

  8. Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782)

  9. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (1786)

  10. Mozart: Don Giovanni (1787)

  11. Mozart: Così fan tutte (1790)

  12. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (1791)

  13. Cimarosa: Il matrimonio Segreto (1792)

  14. Beethoven: Fidelio (1805)

  15. Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816)

  16. Rossini: La Cenerentola (1817)

  17. Weber: Der Freischütz (1821)

  18. Weber: Oberon (1826)

  19. Rossini: William Tell (1829)

  20. Bellini: Norma (1831)

  21. Donizetti: L’elisir d’amore (1832)

  22. Bellini: I Puritani (1835)

  23. Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)

  24. Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots (1836)

  25. Donizetti: Don Pasquale (1843)

  26. Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer (1843)

  27. Verdi: Ernani (1844)

  28. Wagner: Tannhäuser (1845)

  29. Flotow: Martha (1847)

  30. Wagner: Lohengrin (1850)

  31. Verdi: Rigoletto (1851)

  32. Verdi: Il Trovatore (1853)

  33. Verdi: La Traviata (1853)

  34. Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (1857)

  35. Gounod: Faust (1859)

  36. Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (1859)

  37. Verdi: La forza del destino (1862)

  38. Meyerbeer: L’Africaine (1865)

  39. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (1865)

  40. Smetana: The Bartered Bride (1866)

  41. Thomas: Mignon (1866)

  42. Gounod: Roméo et Juliette (1867)

  43. Verdi: Don Carlos (1867)

  44. Boito: Mefistofele (1868)

  45. Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868)

  46. Wagner: Das Rheingold (1869)

  47. Wagner: Die Walküre (1870)

  48. Verdi: Aida (1871)

  49. J. Strauss: Die Fledermaus (1874)

  50. Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (1874)

  51. Bizet: Carmen (1875)

  52. Wagner: Siegfried (1876)

  53. Wagner: Götterdämmerung (1876)

  54. Ponchielli: La Gioconda (1876)

  55. Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila (1877)

  56. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (1879)

  57. Offenbach: Les contes d’Hoffmann (1881)

  58. Wagner: Parsifal (1882)

  59. Delibes: Lakmé (1883)

  60. Massenet: Manon (1884)

  61. Verdi: Otello (1887)

  62. Berlioz: Les Troyens (1890)

  63. Borodin: Prince Igor (1890)

  64. Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana (1890)

  65. Leoncavallo: Pagliacci (1892)

  66. Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretel (1893)

  67. Puccini: Manon Lescaut (1893)

  68. Verdi: Falstaff (1893)

  69. Massenet: Thaïs (1894)

  70. Giordano: Andrea Chénier (1896)

  71. Puccini: La Bohème (1896)

  72. Charpentier: Louise (1900)

  73. Puccini: Tosca (1900)

  74. Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

  75. Puccini: Madama Butterfly (1904)

  76. R. Strauss: Salome (1905)

  77. R. Strauss: Elektra (1909)

  78. Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d’Or (1909)

  79. Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto di Susanna (1909)

  80. Puccini: La fanciulla del West (1910)

  81. R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (1911)

  82. Ravel: L’heure Espagnole (1911)

  83. R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos (1912)

  84. Montemezzi: L’amore dei tre re (1913)

  85. Puccini: Gianni Schicchi (1918)

  86. Puccini: Il Tabarro (1918)

  87. Puccini: Suor Angelica (1918)

  88. Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges (1921)

  89. Berg: Wozzeck (1925)

  90. Puccini: Turandot (1926)

  91. R. Strauss: Arabella (1933)

  92. Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts (1934)

  93. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (1935)

  94. R. Strauss: Capriccio (1942)

  95. Britten: Peter Grimes (1945)

  96. Menotti: The Medium (1946)

  97. Menotti: The Telephone (1947)

  98. Menotti: The Consul (1950)

  99. Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951)

  100. Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress (1951)