The Top 40 Most Popular Operas, Part 4 (#31 through #40)
A quick guide for newcomers to the genre, with links to online video recordings of complete performances, with English subtitles whenever possible.
Donizetti's Don Pasquale
Another comedy of manners with a melodic bel canto score.
Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, 2003 (Alessandro Corbelli, Eva Mei, Antonino Siragusa, Roberto de Candia; conducted by Gérard Korsrten)
Verdi's Macbeth
The first of Verdi's great Shakespearean operas.
Zürich Opera, 2001 (Thomas Hampson, Paoletta Marrocu, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Luis Lima; conducted by Franz Welser-Möst)
Beethoven's Fidelio
Beethoven's only opera, a drama of love, courage, and idealism in the face of political corruption.
Vienna State Opera, 1979 (Gundula Janowitz, René Kollo, Hans Sotin, Manfred Jungwirth, Lucia Popp; conducted by Leonard Bernstein)
Gounod's Faust
One of the most wildly popular operas in the 19th and early 20th centuries: a melodic French interpretation of the Faust legend.
Vienna State Opera, 1985 (Francisco Araiza, Gabriela Benacková, Ruggero Raimondi; conducted by Erich Binder)
Richard Strauss's Salome
Strauss's one-act operatic translation Oscar Wilde's erotic and powerful Biblically-inspired play.
Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 2010 (Erika Sunnegårdh, Mark S. Doss, Robert Brubaker, Dalia Schaechter, Mark Milhofer; conducted by Nicola Luisotti)
Puccini's Gianni Schicchi
Puccini's only comic opera, a rollicking one-act farce inspired by a passage from Dante's Divine Comedy.
Teatro alla Scala, 2008 (Leo Nucci, Nino Machiadze, Vittorio Grigolo, Cinzia De Mola; conducted by Riccardo Chailly)
Verdi's Don Carlo
A grand, tragic historical drama of politics, love vs. duty, intergenerational conflict, friendship (of the vaguely homoerotic variety), and abuse of power.
Metropolitan Opera, 1983 (Plácido Domingo, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Louis Quilico, Grace Bumbry, Ferruccio Furlanetto; conducted by James Levine)
Bellini's Norma
A great bel canto soprano vehicle, depicting a tragic love triangle amid the Roman conquest of Gaul.
Sydney Opera House, 1978 (Joan Sutherland, Margareta Elkins, Ron Stevens, Clifford Grant; conducted by Richard Bonynge)
Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos
A unique "opera within an opera" that explores the themes of comedy vs. drama and "low art" vs. "high art."
Salzburg Festival, 1965 (Hildegard Hillebrecht, Sena Jurinac, Reri Grist, Jess Thomas; conducted by Karl Böhm)
Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice)
A groundbreaking early Classical interpretation of the Orpheus myth, replacing the pageantry of Baroque opera with "noble simplicity."
Feature film, 2014 (Bejun Mehta, Eva Liebau, Regula Mühlemann; conducted by Vaclav Luks) (no subtitles; read the libretto in English translation here)
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