How to pick an opera to watch for the first time (ft. the ULTIMATE opera beginner's list)

THE ULTIMATE BEGINNER’S OPERA LIST
1.LENGHT Puccini operas on the shortish side (2h) that will 100% show up in any Theater: Tosca and La Boheme

SHORT OPERAS under 1H
Trouble in Tahiti / Bernstein (45’)
The telephone / Menotti (25’)
Bluebeard’s Castle / Bartok (1h)
Dido and Eneas / Purcell (55’)
L’heure espagnole / Ravel / (55’)
Il Trittico / Puccini / (50’ each)
Der Kaiser von Atlantis / Ullman (50’)
Bastien und Bastienne / Mozart (50’)
L’enfant et les sortilèges / Ravel (50’)
La Voix Humaine / Poulenc (50')
under 2H
Pagliacci / Leoncavallo (1 h 15’)
The turn of the screw / Britten (1h 45’)
Curlew River / Britten (1h 15’)
Iolanta / Tchaikovsky / (1h 40’)
Orfeo et Euridice / Gluck (1h 30’)
Cavalleria Rusticana / Mascagni / (1h20’)
Acis and Galatea / Haendel (1h30’)
Hansel und Gretel / Humperdinck (1h55’)
Salome/ Strauss (1h40’)
Elektra / Strauss (1h50’)
In the penal colony / Glass (1h20’)
Kata Kabanova / Janacek (1h40’)
Les pecheurs de perles / Bizet (1h50’)
The cunning Little Vixen / Janacek (1h45’)
The nose / Shostakovich (1h50’)
Wozzeck / Berg (1h40’)

2.LANGUAGE: operas and composers in languages that are not Italian, French or German

ENGLISH: Anything by Britten (“Turn of the screw”, “Albert Herring”, “The rape of Lucretia”, Peter Grimes) / “The rake’s progress” ( Stravinsky) / “Porgy and Bess” ( Gershwin) /“Nixon in China” (Adams) / “Written on skin” (George Benjamin) / “Angels in America” (Péter Eötvös) / “Dido and Eneas” ( Purcell) / “Anna Nicole” (Turnage) / Anything by Maxwell Davies / Anything by Bernstein ( “Candide”, “Trouble in Tahiti”) / “Fire shut up my bones” Terence Blanchard / "Little Women" by Mark Adamo / "Vanessa" by Barber
SPANISH: “Beatrix Cenci” ( Ginastera) / “La vida breve” ( Manuel de Falla) / “Goyescas” ( Granados)/ “Bomarzo” ( Ginastera) “Maria de Buenos Aires” ( Piazzolla)/ “La ciudad ausente” ( Gandini) / "Circe" (Ruperto Chapi) / "Las Golondrinas" (Usandizaga) / "Marina" ( Arrieta) / "La dolores" (Breton) / "Adios a la Bohemia" (Sorozabal)
CZECH: “The bartender Bride” ( Smetana)/ “Brundibar” ( Krasa )/ “The cunning little Vixen”, “Jenufa”, “Katia Kabanova” ( Janacek)/ “Rusalka “(Dvorak)
RUSSIAN: anything by Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Glinka, Shostakovich.
PORTUGUESE: some of Antonio Carlos Gomes operas (make sure you check before watching cause some of them are in Italian )
POLISH: Szymanowski's "King Roger"
OTHER: Glass's "Satyagraha" (Sanskrit), "Akhnaten" (mostly syllabic)

3.MUSICAL LANGUAGE
BAROQUE STYLE ( i.e if you like Vivaldi’s 4 seasons): composers like Händel, Purcell, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Charpentier, Rameau, Lully
ROMANTIC STYLE (i.e. you like melodic, romantic music): between 1830 and 1900, give or take. Mostly Italian repertoire ( Verdi, Donizetti, Bellini, Puccini), some French ( Bizet, Massenet, Gounod) also Tchaikovsky and Dvorak.
DARKER/ ATONAL ( i.e. you like scary movies soundtrack): from 1920 onwards. Salome and Elektra by Strauss, anything by Berg, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Britten, Poulenc, Zimmerman, Lygetti, Eötvös, Reimann, Berio, Glass, most living composers.
JAZZ and CABARET: anything by Kurt Weil, Bernstein, Gershwin, Weinberger's "Fruhlingssturme"
4.PLOT
COMEDY: most of Rossini’s operas, Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro, “Don Giovanni” and “Cosi fan Tutte”, “A midsummer’s night dream” and “Albert Herring” by Britten, “L’elisir d’amore” and “Don Pasquale” by Donizetti, “Gianni Schichi” by Puccini, “Falstaff” by Verdi, “Ariadne auf Naxos” and “Rosenkavalier” by Strauss.
ROMANTIC: follow the romantic musical style composers and you’ll be on the money ( but mostly I’d say Puccini, Verdi, Bizet and Massenet)
DARK/SOCIAL COMMENTARY: follow the darker/atonal composers…The closer you get to our times the more likely you are to find current topics, like in “Anna Nicole” by Turnage, “Dr Atomic” and “Nixon in China” by Adams, “Angels in America” by Eötvös, “Fire shut up my bones” by Terence Blanchard

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