Written in early 2025.

No other opera house has the Met’s resources or its global influence. It is the leading opera house in North America, and the biggest and busiest opera house in the world — more than 80,000 people attend its 200-odd performances every year¹. Its Live in HD cinema screenings — broadcast in 73 countries and in six continents — give it a greater global reach than any other company.

As one of the most visible opera houses in the world, indeed the global face of opera, the Met’s choices shape what audiences outside the USA see and think about opera. It should be an ambassador for the entire operatic tradition, not only preserving standard works but also reviving neglected masterpieces and introducing them to a new audience, and producing the national works of some of the countries it broadcasts to, showcasing them, and sharing them with the rest of the world.

Yet the Met is also perhaps the least adventurous of any major opera house. The fact that it has been in financial difficulties for some time is no coincidence.

Last month, the Metropolitan Opera revealed its 2025–26 season of “extraordinary opera”: six new productions, including three Met premières, and 12 revivals. Nearly all the operas scheduled — including the new productions — have been performed recently, most in the last five years. “Extraordinary” is not the word.

• Mozart’s Magic Flute and Puccini’s La Bohème (in the current season)
• Bizet’s Carmen and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Turandot (all performed in 2024)
• Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Verdi’s La Traviata (last performed in 2023)
• Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (last performed in 2022)
• Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (performed in 2021)
• Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment (last performed in 2019)
• Bellini’s I Puritani (performed in 2017)
• Bellini’s La Sonnambula andWagner’s Tristan und Isolde (performed in 2016)
• Giordano’s Andrea Chénier and Richard Strauss’s Arabella (last performed in 2014).

The two Bellini operas and Tristan are new productions. To give a patina of innovation, the season also includes three modern operas that have never before been performed at the Met: Saariaho’s Innocence, Frank’s El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, and Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Unsurprisingly, the Met’s 2025–26 season was greeted with frustration and disappointment, as these comments from YouTube² show:

• The Met plays it safe repeating more or less the same program every season. The question is about the casts.
• Boheme, Turandot, and Butterfly might as well just be considered tourist attractions at this point. The Onegin is a tired dull production, well past its sell-by date. Two Bellini operas in one season? Why. Andrea Chenier with Piotr Bezcala…is he the only tenor in the world singing this repertoire?  And what’s the deal with Michael Spyres, the “baritenor,” as Tristan?
• The Met continues its inexorable march towards irrelevance. Every season Boheme and Magic Flute. Only one Verdi and Wagner. Spending millions of bucks on modern stuff that has virtually no chance of securing a place in the repertory. Why not an occasional outing of less performed operas like Vespri Siciliani and I Lombardi? Why not unfamiliar works by Gounod, Zandonai, Giordano, even Meyerbeer? At least they knew how to write for the voice. And the Met has the gall to phone us at home and ask for money on top of those stratospheric prices. Get real and get rid of [general manager Peter] Gelb!

In fact, this conservative, risk-averse, stale programming is all too typical of the Met. The Met specialises in lavish productions of familiar works so that audiences can hear their favourite singers (sometimes miscast) in operas they already know. Its repertoire is skewed towards a handful of warhorses, rotated year in year out, sometimes in new productions — above all:

• Puccini: La Bohème (1,403 performances)
• Verdi: Aida (1,199 performances)
• Verdi: La Traviata (1,055 performances)
• Bizet: Carmen (1,041 performances)
• Puccini: Tosca (1,021 performances)
• Verdi: Rigoletto (943 performances)
• Puccini: Madama Butterfly (918 performances)

More than 1,400 performances of La Bohème, nearly 1,200 performances of Aida, and more than 1,000 performances each of Carmen, Tosca and Traviata … while hundreds of major operas have never been performed at the Met at all. The Met, in fact, epitomises opera’s reduction to “a museum, where one revisits a few cherished works, chiefly with a view to hearing fine voices sing”.³

Audiences, however, are not excited by the same old operas. Ticket sales suggest that the repeating warhorses has diminishing results, and that audiences are glutted: supposed money-makers are not selling out. None of the three best-selling operas in the 2023–24 season hit 90 per cent:

• The Magic Flute (87 per cent of tickets sold, performed almost annually);
• Turandot (82 per cent, performed annually);
• and Carmen (81 per cent, first post-COVID performances).

La Bohème, the most-performed opera at the Met: , had only 74 per cent attendance. In the previous season, Tannhäuser — performed for the first time since 2015 — sold only 64 per cent of its seats.⁴

Attempts at rejuvenating second-tier operas with non-traditional stagings backfired. La Forza del Destino — returning after an 18-year absence, in the first new production in 30 years — only sold 71 per cent of tickets; it was “set in a contemporary world” and used the Met’s turntable “to represent the unstoppable advance of destiny”. Un ballo in maschera, staged as a film noir with waiters and zombies, limped in as the least popular production of the season, at only 56 per cent.  Ballo was marketed as “appearing for the first time since 2015”; the Met rotates the same works, while other operas — including several early Verdi never performed at the Met — are ignored.

The Met’s reliance on familiar works comes not only at the expense of discovery and artistic leadership, but of financial solvency. The Met has been in financial difficulties since the COVID-19 pandemic weakened ticket sales. At the end of the 2023–24 season, ticket sales (72 per cent) had increased over the previous year (66 per cent); but still remained below pre-COVID levels (75 per cent in 2018–19). Discounting means that revenue is only 64 per cent of potential box-office capacity. The Met has condensed its runs and cut 10 per cent of its performances.⁵

To stay afloat, the Met has relied on large withdrawals from its endowment fund ($40 million), and tasked the Boston Consulting Group with fixing its financial problems.⁶ Peter Gelb predicts a positive swing of $30 to $40 million over the next four seasons, and revenue is increasing slowly, by 7.64 per cent, from $281.6 million in 2022–23 to $303.1 million in 2023–24, up by $21.5 million, but below the $311 million of the 2018–19 season⁷. However, the Met has not raised significantly more donor money: contributions and grants stayed the same (at $185.1 million).

Mr Gelb is “convinced that we [the Met] are on the right path in terms of mixing the presentations between timeless classics and new works”. In practice, however, the model of relying on the same operas does not work, modern operas struggle to draw crowds, and the Met ignores opera enthusiasts who want variety.

Performances of contemporary works are a third empty. Attendance rates for modern operas hovered at around 60 to 65 per cent of tickets sold:

• Florencia en el Amazonas: 68 per cent;
• Fire Shut Up in My Bones (reprise of a 2021 production): 65 per cent;
• Dead Man Walking: 62 per cent;
• The Hours (reprise of a 2022 production): 61 per cent, despite being marketed as a star event with Renee Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O’Hara;
• and John Adams’s El Niño: 58 per cent.

The exception was X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X: 78 per cent of tickets sold. This suggests that audiences are not enthusiastic about modern opera at the Met.

Those contemporary operas attracted younger audiences, but the Met has not fostered a steady committed younger audience: 85 per cent of the audience are single-ticket buyers (not subscribers); with an average age of 44; the subscribers are, on average, 70. Many audiences treat opera as a one-time event: new ticket buyers have increased by 12 per cent (84,934 in 2023–24, up from 75,930); a quarter saw a contemporary opera, and only 10 per cent of those returned to see another opera.

The Live in HD series is wasted on repeats: this season will be the fourth time both La Bohème and Eugene Onegin have been recorded for HD. Conversely, in previous seasons, stagings of non-warhorse operas like Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová have not been broadcast.

The Met needs to solve its audience retention and repertoire issues, or its financial problems will persist.

The Met’s repertoire

The Met is a Gilded Age opera house whose repertoire calcified in time shortly after World War I. It purged itself of much of its 19^th and early 20^th century repertoire; it missed the baroque and bel canto revivals; and it never fully acknowledged the existence of post-verismo opera — leaving it with a core of Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, the better-known Strauss operas, and the most popular bel canto and French works, to which a few twentieth century and contemporary works were cautiously added to seem relevant.

Sundry operas and their last performances:

Year last performed	Composer	Work	Number of performances
1884	Giacomo Meyerbeer	Robert le Diable	7
1887	Daniel-François-Esprit Auber	La Muette de Portici (Masaniello)	6
1888	Gaspare Spontini	Fernand Cortez	4
1890	Richard Wagner	Rienzi	21
1900	Otto Nicolai	Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor	1
1902	Jules Massenet	Le Cid	11
1904	François-Adrien Boieldieu	La Dame blanche	3
1904	Alfredo Catalani	La Wally	4
1904	Gaetano Donizetti	Lucrezia Borgia	1
1906	Karl Goldmark	Die Königin von Saba	46
1910	Daniel-François-Esprit Auber	Fra Diavolo	9
1910	Albert Lortzing	Zar und Zimmermann	6
1911	Alberto Franchetti	Germania	9
1912	Christoph Willibald Gluck	Armide	9
1912	Claudio Monteverdi	L’Orfeo	1
1915	Giacomo Meyerbeer	Les Huguenots	129
1915	Carl Maria von Weber	Euryanthe	10
1919	Charles Gounod	Mireille	4
1921	Carl Maria von Weber	Oberon	13
1922	Édouard Lalo	Le Roi d’Ys	6
1922	Jules Massenet	La Navarraise	12
1922	Maurice Ravel	L’Heure espagnole	7
1923	Erich Wolfgang Korngold	Die tote Stadt	12
1923	Pietro Mascagni	L’amico Fritz	7
1923	Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden)	11
1924	Jules Massenet	Le Roi de Lahore	6
1925	Giacomo Meyerbeer	Dinorah	5
1926	Jules Massenet	Don Quichotte	9
1926	Gaspare Spontini	La Vestale	9
1927	Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari	I gioielli della Madonna	13
1931	Pietro Mascagni	Iris	16
1932	Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Sadko	20
1933	Franco Leoni	L’Oracolo	55
1933	Gioacchino Rossini	Il signor Bruschino	5
1934	Giacomo Meyerbeer	L’Africaine	71
1935	Gaetano Donizetti	Linda di Chamounix	8
1937	Domenico Cimarosa	Il matrimonio segreto	2
1943	Giovanni Battista Pergolesi	La serva padrona	6
1945	Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Le Coq d’or	68
1947	Léo Delibes	Lakmé	63
1949	Gustave Charpentier	Louise	52
1949	Italo Montemezzi	L’amore dei tre re	66
1949	Ambroise Thomas	Mignon	110
1961	Christoph Willibald Gluck	Alceste	18
1968	Friedrich von Flotow	Martha	116
1972	Carl Maria von Weber	Der Freischütz	30
1973	Henry Purcell	Dido and Æneas	13
1976	Jules Massenet	Esclarmonde	10
1978	Gaetano Donizetti	La favorita	25
1979	Giacomo Meyerbeer	Le Prophète (last performed 1928)	99

The Met states that “to revitalise its repertoire … [it] regularly presents modern masterpieces alongside the classics”. But revitalising the repertoire is what the Met has signally failed to do. Entire periods and schools of opera are neglected or at best under-represented: Baroque, French grand opera, Eastern European opera, 20^th century opera, and operas from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. (See below.)

Historically significant composers have never been performed at the Met: Monteverdi (technically, once, in 1912, in a concert performance, in English); any opera seria composer except Handel; Lully and Rameau, the pillars of French opera; Salieri, Gluck’s chosen disciple; Glinka, the father of Russian opera; the reformist Mercadante and the popular and prolific Pacini, composers who influenced Verdi; the dramatic Marschner, an important precursor of Wagner; or 20^th century composers such as Schreker (a composer once more popular than Strauss), Milhaud, Henze and Tippett.

Generations have elapsed since Met audiences last saw some of the masterpieces of 19^th century opera — Les Huguenots, for instance, perhaps the most successful opera of the age, was last staged in 1915. Once-popular works — Der Freischütz, the German national opera, La Wally, L’amico Fritz, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Martha, Zar und Zimmermann, Lakmé — disappeared decades ago. Lucrezia Borgia was staged once, in 1904, and Die tote Stadt has not been seen at the Met for more than a century. The Met has never staged works that are second-tier warhorses in Europe — Il turco in Italia, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Love for Three Oranges, The Turn of the Screw, to name but a few — and there are shocking gaps in the corpuses of Massenet, Strauss and even Verdi. Saint-Saëns, Dvořák and Smetana are reduced to one-trick ponies, when they are staged at all (The Bartered Bride was last performed 30 years ago).

The Met is America’s leading operatic institution, but it has failed to champion American musical heritage.⁸ Instead of staging great American works, it has neglected operas (beyond modern works) that are important to American operatic history. It has never staged operas by major composers such Scott Joplin or Aaron Copland; Still’s Troubled Island, the first opera by a Black composer staged by a major US company; or Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Consul and Saint of Bleecker Street. Significant works have not been performed since their premières at the Met, such as Hanson’s Merry Mount or Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra.

Early opera barely exists as far as the Met is concerned, despite the Baroque revival that has taken place in the last 30 years. Its one gesture in that direction was the jukebox pasticcio The Enchanted Island, with arias translated into English and Plácido Domingo to draw in the punters. The Met has only ever performed two 17^th-century operas, and not for fifty years. Opera seria is reduced entirely to Handel; the Met has shown no interest in the operas of Vivaldi, nor of the Neapolitan composers Scarlatti, Vinci and Porpora, nor of the mid-18^th century’s favourite composer, Hasse, even though these musicians wrote some of the most sublimely beautiful and thrillingly virtuosic arias ever. Even Gluck, the composer who reformed opera and whom Berlioz and Wagner adored, is sidelined: this century, the Met has only staged Orfeo ed Euridice and Iphigénie en Tauride, with, once more, an ageing and miscast Domingo — yet Gluck should be as central to the repertory as Mozart.

French opera at the Met consists of a handful of overplayed works: the ubiquitous Carmen, Les contes d’Hoffmann, and so forth. Grand opéra, one of the most dominant and influential forms of 19^th-century opera, is absent; Meyerbeer’s operas were once essential, and his absence leaves a gap as big as if another Giacomo, G. Puccini, were to disappear. The Met has the resources and technical capabilities to stage these historical blockbusters in the grand manner. Many late Romantic and early 20^th century French operas have never been staged there.

The Met sees itself as one of the great Italian opera houses, but it does little beyond a handful of popular bel canto works, Verdi and Puccini, and the most famous verismo works. The Met still has to catch up to the bel canto revival: it has produced some of Rossini’s opera seria in the past decade, but has yet to perform several major works. It has staged only four of Bellini’s operas, and seven of Donizetti’s nearly 70 operas. It presented three of the four English queen operas six decades after they were revived in Europe, and more than 40 years after Beverly Sills sang them at the New York City Opera. Their contemporaries are absent, even though they would please devotees of Verdi while offering novelty. Many verismo operas have not been performed for a century or more, while the Met has never ventured on post-Puccinian composers such as Dallapiccola and Pizzetti; for the Met, Italian opera ends with Turandot.

The Met shows little interest in opera beyond Italy, Germany and France. There is the occasional Russian or Czech opera, but it ignores the existence of beautiful and dramatic operas from Hungary (Erkel’s Bánk Bán), Poland (Moniuszko’s Straszny dwór), Denmark (Nielsen’s Maskarade), Georgia (Paliashvili’s Abesalom da Eteri), Brazil (Gomes’s Il Guarany or Lo Schiavo), Japan (Ikuma Dan’s Yūzuru), Thailand (just about anything by Somtow Sucharitkul), the Philippines (Padilla de León’s Noli Me Tangere), South Africa (Khumalo’s Princess Magogo), or the Muslim world (Hajibeyov’s Leyli and Majnun). English opera — opera in the audience’s own language — would draw crowds, yet the sole British operas the Met has produced are those of Britten and Adès, despite a rich tradition running from Balfe and Wallace to Tippett and Turnage, among them such familiar composers as Sullivan, Delius, Holst and Vaughan Williams.

The Met commissions a few new works each season, to show it supports contemporary opera, but it marginalises twentieth century opera for the most part, treating it as an afterthought, rather than as a vital part of operatic history that would intrigue and stimulate jaded palates. As well as modernist and Expressionist works exist lushly late Romantic works, while Theodorakis’s trilogy of Greek tragedies, dedicated to Verdi, Bellini and Puccini, would please a Met audience.

More comic opera would attract audiences. Comic opera at the Met consists of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and Viennese operetta. The opéras-comiques of Boieldieu, Hérold, Auber, beloved in the 19^th century, and the brilliant comedies of Offenbach — the perennial Hoffmann and a 1970s Périchole aside — have never been performed at all. German comic opera has gradually disappeared, although Lortzing, Nicolai and Flotow were once staples, and George Bernard Shaw considered Goetz’s Taming of the Shrew the greatest comic work of the 19^th century after Die Meistersinger. More exotic works such as Nielsen’s Maskarade or Moniuszko’s Straszny dwór, one of the most tuneful operas of all time, have never been done.

Festivals like the Bard SummerScape and Wexford program far more exciting seasons than the Met, despite having smaller budgets, while European houses — Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Zurich and Lyon, to name but a few — balance warhorses with rarities.

Recommendations: How to fix the Met’s problems

If the Met wants to remain culturally relevant and financially solvent, it must showcase the full range of opera from Monteverdi to the twentieth century.

The Met should become the venue that stages world-class productions of operas that cannot be seen anywhere else. If promoted properly, people will come from around the world to see them — not just to see something at the Met, but to see a rare work done better than any other opera house could. Ideally, a Met season would consist of:

• 40 to 50 per cent core classics or works by name composers
• 30 to 40 per cent revivals / Met premières of forgotten masterpieces
• 10 to 20 per cent new and contemporary works

The Met would stop relying on the same small list of warhorses. It would feature more rare operas — both historically important works and favourites of bygone generations. It would rotate composers’ works. (The Puccini for the season might be Le Villi or Edgar instead of Tosca or Madama Butterfly, and the Verdi might be I due Foscari or I masnadieri instead of La Traviata.) It would stage at least one historical American opera. It would embrace the global repertoire. It would include one or two comedies. This would make the Met a go-to destination for opera lovers globally. Putting on rare operas would stimulate (lagging) interest in the Met’s season, rather than induce a wearisome familiarity. More demand would generate more revenue from cinemas and streaming. Fresh programming = new audiences = more ticket sales = improved finances.

While works might be unfamiliar, they are not difficult to enjoy; they are operas that were critically acclaimed, hits at the time, and often beloved for generations. Many have beautiful music, great tunes, and strong drama; with high-quality casts and strong promotion, they could be hits.

Admirers of Mozart, for instance, would take pleasure in Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara or in Salieri’s La scuola de’ gelosi — of which Goethe wrote: “the opera is the favourite piece of the audience, and the audience is right” — or indeed Tarare, whose libretto was written by, not merely adapted from, Beaumarchais. An audience that enjoys Verdi would thrill to Foroni’s Cristina regina di Svezia, or to the bloodthirsty and dramatic operas of Nini⁹; to Mercadante’s  imposing Roman tragedy Orazi e Curiazi, whose oath-swearing scene is as magnificent a spectacle as Aida’s triumphal march; to Petrella’s Jone, once a worldwide success as popular as Verdi; or to the late operas of Pacini: Dwight’s Journal of Music called Lorenzino de’ Medici “a superb opera […] and one that for a time made me stagger in my Verdi faith. It is so fresh, so original, and combines musical science so well with ear-haunting and simple melody that it appears to me astonishing that it has not obtained a reputation out of Italy.”¹⁰ La Riforma declared that in the “immense and stupendous” second act finale of Niccolò de Lapi, “Meyerbeer and Wagner and the Verdi of Forza del Destino, of Don Carlos, of Aida, have found a powerful rival, a true titan”.  These are works that modern audiences ought to hear.

Publicity is key; at present, the advertisements the Met runs online are poor: clips without context. (See, for instance, Fidelio, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Moby-Dick.) Ads for opera should not just show stage action; they should answer: “What is the story? Why is this opera important? Why should the audience come?” Halévy’s La Reine de Chypre, were the Met to produce it, could be advertised as the first staged production in more than a century of an opera praised by Wagner and Berlioz. The Met should advertise online, in music and arts magazines, on radio and TV, promising a chance to see something rare, beautiful and dramatic.

The Met could collaborate with other opera houses around the world, to share the financial burdens of production, making it less of a risk. Governments of Denmark, Poland, Croatia, Czechia, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye, or South Africa (to name but a few) might see productions of their operas as a form of cultural diplomacy, and be willing to contribute to expenses. Their musicologists might be interviewed during intermission for cinema broadcast, explaining the significance of the work and its place in their country’s history. More inclusive programming could bring in new audiences and end the perception of opera as “Eurocentric”. The world’s leading opera house should reflect opera as a global and historical artform.

if the Met does not take risks, then its ticket sales will continue to shrink; in 10 to 15 years, it might be irrelevant, even financially unsustainable. But if it embraces the rediscovery of the wealth of opera, then it could become the world’s leading opera house once more.

The Met’s repertoire

17^th century opera

 Disappeared from repertoire

Claudio Monteverdi

• No longer performed: L’Orfeo (1607): performed in 1912 (1 performance, in English).
• Never performed: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (1639–40); L’incoronazione di Poppea (1643).

Henry Purcell:

• No longer performed: Dido and Æneas (c. 1683–88): last done in 1973 (13 performances)

Never performed

• Jacopo Peri: the first composer of opera. Euridice (1600); the earliest surviving opera.
• Francesca Caccini: the first woman composer. La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (1625).
• Francesco Cavalli. Works include La Didone (1641); Il Giasone (1649); La Calisto (1651); Elena (1659); and Ercole amante (1662).
• Jean-Baptiste Lully. Works include Alceste (1674); Thésée (1675); Atys (1676); Armide (1686).
• John Blow: Venus and Adonis (c. 1683).
• Agostino Steffani: Niobe, regina di Tebe (1688).
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Médée (1693)

18^th century opera

In repertoire

George Frideric Handel

• In repertoire: Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1724); Agrippina (1709); Rodelinda (1725)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Rinaldo (1711): last performed 1984
  • Samson (1743): last performed 1986

Christoph Willibald Gluck

• In repertoire: Orfeo ed Euridice (1762); Iphigénie en Tauride (1779)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Armide (1777): 1912; semi-staged performance at Julliard School, 2012
  • Alceste (1767): 1961
• Major works never performed:
  • Paride ed Elena (1770)
  • Iphigénie en Aulide (1774). (Julliard School gave concert performance in 2015.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• In repertoire: Idomeneo, re di Creta (1781); Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782); Le nozze di Figaro (1786); Don Giovanni (1787); Così fan tutte (1790); La clemenza di Tito (1791); Die Zauberflöte (1791)
• Never performed:
  • Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770)
  • La finta giardiniera (1775)

Disappeared from repertoire

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

• No longer performed: La serva padrona (1733): 1943
• Never performed: L’Olimpiade (1735)

Domenico Cimarosa: Il matrimonio segreto (1792): 2 performances, 1937

Ferdinando Paër: Il maestro di cappella (1793): last performed 1910

Never performed

• André Campra. L’Europe galante (1697); Le Carnaval de Venise (1699); Tancrède (1702); Idoménée (1712).
• Marin Marais. Alcyone (1706).
• Alessandro Scarlatti, the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera, known as “the Italian Orpheus”. Works include Il Mitridate Eupatore (1707); Tigrane (1715); Telamaco (1718); Marco Attilio Regolò (1719); La Griselda (1721)
• Antonio Vivaldi. Operas include Farnace (1727); Orlando furioso (1727); Griselda (1735).
• Leonardo Vinci: Catone in Utica (1728) and Artaserse (1730).
• Reinhard Keiser, composer of more than 60 operas; in the late 18^th century, some considered him “the greatest original genius in music that Germany has ever produced”. Croesus (1730)
• Nicola Porpora: Germanico in Germania (1732); Polifemo (1735); Ifigenia in Aulide (1735); Carlo il Calvo (1738)
• Jean-Philippe Rameau. Hippolyte et Aricie (1733); Les Indes galantes (1735); Castor et Pollux (1737); Platée (1745).
• Johann Adolph Hasse, the most celebrated opera composer of the mid-18^th century. Operas include Cleofide (1731) and Siroe re di Persia (1733/1763).
• Niccolò Piccinni, the most popular opera composer in 1760s and 1770s Italy. La Cecchina (1760); Didon (1783).
• Thomas Arne: Artaserse (1762)
• Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny. Le Roi et le fermier (1762); Le Déserteur (1769).
• Josef Mysliveček.
• André Grétry. L’Amant jaloux (1778); Andromaque (1780); La Caravane du Caire (1783); Richard Cœeur-de-lion (1784).
• Antonio Salieri, Gluck’s chosen successor, the leading opera composer in 18^th-century Vienna, composer of successful Italian opera buffa, opera seria, and French tragédie lyrique. L’Europa riconosciuta (1778); the first opera performed at La Scala; La scuola de’ gelosi (1778); a Europe-wide success, praised by Goethe; Les Danaïdes (1784); which inspired Berlioz; Tarare (1787); libretto by Beaumarchais.
• Joseph Haydn, the father of the symphony. Orlando paladino (1782); Armida (1784).
• Giovanni Paisiello. Il barbiere di Siviglia (1782); Nina (1789).
• Antonio Sacchini. Œdipe à Colone (1786); the most enduring French tragédie lyrique, and one that greatly moved Berlioz.
• Vicente Martin y Soler, a popular composer of opera buffa. Una cosa rara (1786); L’arbore di Diana (1787).

French opera: 19^th century to Belle Époque

Composers and works in repertoire

Luigi Cherubini, the greatest composer of his day, according to Beethoven, and the finest musical dramatist in Haydn’s opinion; Schumann, Mendelssohn, Wagner and Brahms all admired him.

• In repertoire: Médée (1797): 2022 (and even then in a bastardised version, a 1909 Italian translation with mid-19^th century German recitatives Cherubini didn’t write replacing the original spoken dialogue, and sundry cuts.
• Never performed: Lodoïska (1791); the first Romantic opera. Les Deux Journées (1800); Cherubini’s most popular opera.

Hector Berlioz

• In repertoire: Les Troyens (1863); La damnation de Faust (1846)
• Not in repertoire: Benvenuto Cellini (1838): one production, 2004.
• Never performed: Béatrice et Bénédict (1862)

Charles Gounod

• In repertoire: Faust (1859); Roméo et Juliette (1867)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Philémon et Baucis (1859): 1898
  • Mireille (1864): 1919
• Never performed: Sapho (1851); La reine de Saba (1862); Cinq-Mars (1877); Polyeucte (1878); Le tribut de Zamora (1881).

Jacques Offenbach

• In repertoire: Les contes d’Hoffmann (1881)
• Disappeared from repertoire: La Périchole (1868): 1971.
• Never performed: Orphée aux enfers (1858); La Belle Hélène (1864); La Vie parisienne (1866); La Grande duchesse de Gérolstein (1867); Les brigands (1869).

Ambroise Thomas

• Recently performed: Hamlet (1868): 2010
• Disappeared from repertoire: Mignon (1866): 1949

Georges Bizet

• In repertoire: Carmen (1875); Les Pêcheurs de perles (1863)
• Never performed: La jolie fille de Perth (1867); Djamileh (1872)

Camille Saint-Saëns

• In repertoire: Samson et Dalila (1877)
• Never performed: any of his other operas, including Étienne Marcel (1879); Henry VIII (1883) and Ascanio (1890).

Jules Massenet

• In repertoire: Manon (1884); Werther (1892); Thaïs (1894); Cendrillon (1899)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Le Cid (1885): 1902
  • La Navarraise (1894): 1922
  • Le Roi de Lahore (1877): 1924
  • Don Quichotte (1910): 1926
  • Esclarmonde (1889): 1976
• Never performed: Hérodiade (1881). Le mage (1891). Sapho (1897). Grisélidis (1901). Le jongleur de Notre-Dame (1902). Chérubin (1905). Ariane (1906). Thérèse (1907). Roma (1912). Panurge (1913). Cléopâtre (1914). Amadis (1922).

Disappeared from repertoire

Gaspare Spontini, praised by Berlioz and Wagner:

• Fernand Cortez (1809): last performed 1888
• La Vestale (1807): last performed 1926
• Never performed: Olympie (1819)

François-Adrien Boieldieu, the leading opéra-comique composer of his generation:

• La Dame Blanche (1825): last performed 1904

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

• La Muette de Portici / Masaniello (1828): last performed 1887. Wagner admired it; triggered the Belgian revolution.
• Fra Diavolo (1830): last performed 1910
• Never performed: Gustave III (1833); a precursor to Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera, praised by Bellini. Le cheval de bronze (1835); Le domino noir (1837); Les diamants de la couronne (1841); etc.

Giacomo Meyerbeer, the most celebrated composer of the 19^th-century — he influenced Verdi (who thought him a better musical dramatist than Mozart); Wagner, and French and Russian composers

• Robert le Diable (1831): last performed 1884
• Les Huguenots (1836): last performed 1915
• Dinorah (1859): last performed 1925
• L’Africaine (1865): last performed 1934
• Le Prophète (1849): last performed 1979 (previously, 1928)
• Never performed: L’étoile du nord (1854)

Fromental Halévy, considered the leader of the French school of composers, admired by Wagner and Berlioz.

• La Juive (1835): Disappeared from repertoire in 1936. The Met staged a bland production from Vienna in 2003.
• Never performed: L’Éclair (1835); Guido et Ginevra (1838); Le Shérif (1839); Le Guitarrero (1841); Charles VI (1843); Les Mousquetaires de la Reine (1846); Le Val d’Andorre (1848); La Fée aux roses (1849); La Dame de pique (1850); Le Juif errant (1852); etc.

Charles Lecocq: La Fille de Madame Angot (1872): last performed 1910

Léo Delibes: Lakmé (1883): last performed 1947

Édouard Lalo: Le Roi d’Ys (1888): last performed 1922

Alfred Bruneau: L’Attaque du moulin (1890): last performed 1910

Isidore de Lara: Messaline (1897): last performed 1902

Xavier Leroux: La reine Fiammette (1903): last performed 1919

Paul Dukas. Ariane et Barbe-bleue (1907): last performed 1912

Raoul Laparra: La Habanera (1908): last performed 1924

Gustave Charpentier:

• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Julien (1913): last performed 1914.
  • Louise (1900): last performed 1949

Henri Rabaud: Mârouf (1914): last performed 1937.

Never performed

• Étienne Nicolas Méhul
• Ferdinand Hérold. Zampa (1831); Le Pré aux Clercs (1832).
• Adolphe Adam. Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836)
• Emmanuel Chabrier. L’étoile (1877); Gwendoline (1886); Le roi malgré lui (1887).
• Ernest Reyer: Sigurd (1884); Salammbô (1890)
• Émile Paladilhe: Patrie! (1886); the last great grand opéra
• Vincent d’Indy. Fervaal (1897)
• Ernest Chausson. Le roi Arthus (1903).
• André Messager.
• Reynaldo Hahn. Le Marchand de Venise (1935)
• Camille Erlanger. Le juif polonais (1900); Le Fils de l’étoile (1904); Aphrodite (1906)
• Henry Février. Monna Vanna (1909); a success in its day, staged elsewhere in New York.
• Albéric Magnard. Bérénice (1911); Guercœur (1931).
• Gabriel Fauré. Pénélope (1913)
• Gabriel Dupont. Antar (1921); composed before WWI.

Italian opera: 19^th century to the death of Puccini

In repertoire

Gioacchino Rossini

• In repertoire: L’italiana in Algeri (1813); Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816): La Cenerentola (1817); Armida (1817); La donna del lago (1819); Semiramide (1823); Le comte Ory (1828); Guillaume Tell (1829);
• Disappeared from repertoire
  • Il signor Bruschino (1812): 1933
  • The Siege of Corinth (bastardised version of Maometto II): 1975
• Never performed: Several major operas, including Tancredi (1813); Il Turco in Italia (1814); Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra; Otello (1816); La gazza ladra (1817); Mosè in Egitto (1818); Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818); Ermione (1819); Maometto II (1820); Matilde di Shabran (1821); Zelmira (1822).

Vincenzo Bellini

• In repertoire: Norma (1831); La sonnambula (1831); I puritani (1835)
• Disappeared from repertoire: Il pirata (1827): last and only production 2002–3
• Never performed: Bianca e F/Gernando (1826); La straniera (1829); Zaira (1829); I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830); Beatrice di Tenda (1833)

Gaetano Donizetti

• In repertoire: Anna Bolena (1830); L’elisir d’amore (1832); Lucia di Lammermoor (1835); Maria Stuarda (1835); Roberto Devereux (1837); La fille du régiment (1840); Don Pasquale (1843)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Lucrezia Borgia (1833): first and only performance 1904 (!)
  • Linda di Chamounix (1842): 1935
  • La favorita (1840): 1978 (in Italian)
• Never performed: Nearly 60 other operas, including Fausta (1832); Parisina (1833); Marino Faliero (1835); Belisario (1836); L’assedio di Calais (1836); Pia de’ Tolomei (1837); Maria di Rudenz (1838); Les martyrs (1840) / Poliuto (1848); Maria Padilla (1841); Dom Sébastien (1843).

Giuseppe Verdi

• In repertoire: Nabucco (1842); Ernani (1844); Macbeth (1847); Luisa Miller (1849); Stiffelio (1850); Rigoletto (1851); Il trovatore (1853); La traviata (1853); Simon Boccanegra (1857); Un ballo in maschera (1859); La forza del destino (1862); Don Carlos (1867); Aida (1871); Otello (1887); Falstaff (1893)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843): 1994
  • Les vêpres siciliennes / I vespri siciliani (1855): 2004
• Never performed: Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio (1839). Un giorno di regno (1840). I due Foscari (1844). Giovanna d’Arco (1845). Alzira (1845). I masnadieri (1847). Jérusalem (1847); Il corsaro (1848). La battaglia di Legnano (1848)

Arrigo Boito

• In repertoire: Mefistofele (1868)
• Never performed: Nerone (1924)

Amilcare Ponchielli

• In repertoire: La Gioconda (1876): last performed 2008.

Giacomo Puccini

• In repertoire: Manon Lescaut (1893); La Bohème (1896); Tosca (1900); Madama Butterfly (1904); La fanciulla del West (1910); La rondine (1917); Il trittico (1918); Turandot (1926)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Le Villi (1884): last performed 1909
• Never performed: Edgar (1889)

Pietro Mascagni

• In repertoire: Cavalleria rusticana (1890)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Lodoletta (1917): 1919
  • L’amico Fritz (1891): 1923
  • Iris (1898): 1931

Ruggero Leoncavallo

• In repertoire: Pagliacci (1892)
• Disappeared from repertoire: Zazà (1900): 1922.

Umberto Giordano

• In repertoire: Fedora (1898); Andrea Chénier (1896)
• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Madame Sans-Gêne (1915): last performed 1918
  • La Cena delle beffe (1924): last performed 1927

Francesco Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur (1902)

Riccardo Zandonai:

• In repertoire: Francesca da Rimini (1914)

Disappeared from repertoire

Federico and Luigi Ricci: Crispino e la comare (1850): last performed 1919

Alfredo Catalani

• La Wally (1892): last performed 1904.
• Loreley (1890): last performed 1923.

Alberto Franchetti

• Asrael (1888): 1890, one performance
• Germania (1902): last performed 1911

Antonio Smareglia: Il vassalo di Szigeth (1889): last performed 1890

Luigi Mancinelli: Ero e Leandro (1896): last performed 1903

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari:

• Le donne curiose (1903): last performed 1913.
• L’amore medico (1913): last performed 1914.
• Il segreto di Susanna (1909): last performed 1922.
• I gioielli della Madonna (1911): last performed 1927.
• Sly (1927): last performed 2002.

Franco Leoni: L’Oracolo (1905): last performed 1933

Italo Montemezzi:

• Giovanni Gallurese (1905): last performed 1925.
• La notte di Zoraima (1931): last performed 1931.
• L’amore dei tre re (1913): last performed 1949.

Never performed

• Simon Mayr: Medea in Corinto (1813)
• Nicola Vaccai: Romeo e Giulietta (1825)
• Carlo Coccia: Caterina di Guisa (1833)
• Saverio Mercadante, the leading opera composer in Italy between Donizetti and Verdi, who wrote a series of reform operas that inspired Verdi and were praised by Liszt. Il giuramento (1837); Il bravo (1839); Orazi e Curiazi (1846); Virginia (1866)
• Alessandro Nini: La marescialla d’Ancre (1839)
• Giovanni Pacini, “for many years the most popular and prolific composer of Italy”¹¹, and whose later works are astonishingly inventive and varied “pseudo-historic, immensely emotional operas sung by the greatest artists of the day”¹². Saffo (1840)
• Jacopo Foroni: Margherita (1848); Cristina regina di Svezia (1849)
• Errico Petrella: Jone (1858), a worldwide success
• Franco Faccio: Amleto (1865)
• Filippo Marchetti: Ruy Blas (1869)
• António Carlos Gomes: Il Guarany (1870) — Verdi called it “true musical genius”
• Vittorio Gnecchi: Cassandra (1903)

German Romantic and early 20^th century opera

In repertoire

Richard Wagner

• In repertoire: Der fliegende Holländer (1843); Tannhäuser (1845); Lohengrin (1850); Tristan und Isolde (1865); Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868); Der Ring des Nibelungen (1869–1876); Parsifal (1882)
• Disappeared from repertoire: Rienzi (1842): last performed 1890.
• Never performed: Die Feen (1833–34/1888); Das Liebesverbot (1836)

Johann Strauss II

• In repertoire: Die Fledermaus (1874)
• Disappeared from repertoire: Der Zigeunerbaron (1885): last performed 1960

Engelbert Humperdinck:

• In repertoire: Hänsel und Gretel (1893)
• Disappeared from repertoire: Königskinder (1897): last performed 1914

Richard Strauss

• In repertoire: Salome (1905); Elektra (1909); Der Rosenkavalier (1911); Ariadne auf Naxos (1916); Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919); Arabella (1933); Capriccio (1942)
• Dubious: Die ägyptische Helena (1928): last performed 2007
• Never performed: Guntram (1894); Feuersnot (1901); Intermezzo (1924); Die schweigsame Frau (1935); Friedenstag (1938); Daphne (1938); Die Liebe der Danaë (1944)

Franz Lehár: The Merry Widow (1905)

Disappeared from repertoire

Carl Maria von Weber:

• Euryanthe (1823): last performed 1915
• Oberon (1826): last performed 1921
• Der Freischütz (1821): last performed 1972

Albert Lortzing: Zar und Zimmermann (1837): last performed 1910

Friedrich von Flotow:

• Alessandro Stradella (1844): last performed 1910
• Martha (1847): last performed 1968

Otto Nicolai: Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1849): one performance, 1900

Peter Cornelius: Der Barbier von Bagdad (1858): last performed 1926

Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: Diana von Solange (1858): 2 performances, last performed 1891

Hermann Goetz: Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung / The Taming of the Shrew (1874): last performed 1916 (George Bernard Shaw thought it was the second greatest comic opera of the 19^th century after Meistersinger)

Ignaz Brüll: Das goldene Kreuz (1875): last performed 1886

Franz von Suppé:

• Boccaccio (1879): last performed 1931
• Donna Juanita (1860): last performed 1932

Karl Goldmark:

• Merlin (1886): last performed 1887
• Die Königin von Saba (1875): last performed 1906

Viktor Nessler: Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (1884): last performed 1887

Ludwig Thuille: Lobetanz (1898): last performed 1912

Eugen d’Albert: Tiefland (1903): last performed 1909

Leo Blech: Versiegelt (1908): last performed 1912

Max von Schillings: Mona Lisa (1915): last performed 1924

Never performed

• Franz Schubert. Alfonso und Estrella (1822); Fierrabras (1823).
• Louis Spohr. Jessonda (1823).
• Heinrich Marschner. Der Vampyr (1828); Hans Heiling (1833).
• Robert Schumann: Genoveva (1850)
• Franz Schreker. Der ferne Klang (1912); Die Gezeichneten (1918); etc.
• Franz Schmidt: Notre Dame (1914)
• Hans Pfitzner: Palestrina (1917)

Russian opera

In repertoire

Modest Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (1874); Khovanshchina (1883)

• Disappeared from repertoire: The Fair at Sorochyntsi (1913): last performed 1931

Alexander Borodin: Prince Igor (1890)

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

• In repertoire: The Queen of Spades (1890); Iolanta (1892); Eugene Onegin (1879)
• Performed: Mazeppa (1884): 2006
• Never performed: The Oprichnik (1874); The Maid of Orleans (1881); Cherevichki (1887); The Enchantress (1887)

Disappeared from repertoire

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov:

• Snegurochka (1881): last performed 1923
• Sadko (1898): last performed 1932
• Le Coq d’or (1909): last performed 1945
• Never performed:
  • The Maid of Pskov (1873/1892); Christmas Eve (1895); The Tsar’s Bride (1899); The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900); Kashchey the Deathless (1902); The Invisible City of Kitezh (1907)

Never performed

• Mikhail Glinka: A Life for the Tsar (1836); Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842)
• Alexander Dargomyzhsky: Rusalka (1856); Kamenny Gost (1872)
• Alexander Serov: Judith (1863); Rogneda (1865); The Power of the Fiend (1871)
• Anton Rubinstein: Demon (1875)
• Cesar Cui. E.g. The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1883)
• Sergei Taneyev: Oresteia (1895)

Czech opera

In repertoire

Antonín Dvořák

• In repertoire: Rusalka (1901)
• Never performed: Any of Dvořák’s other operas, including Dimitrij (1882); Jakobín (1889); Čert a Káča / The Devil’s Wall (1899).

Leoš Janáček

• Performed this century:
  • Kát’a Kabanová (1921); last performed 2005;
  • From the House of the Dead (1930); in 2009;
  • The Makropulos Case (1926); last performed 2012;
  • Jenůfa (1904); in 2016;
• Never performed: Šárka (1887); Osud (1904); The Excursions of Mr. Broucek (1920); The Cunning Little Vixen (1924)

Disappeared from repertoire

Bedřich Smetana

• Disappeared from repertoire: The Bartered Bride (1866): last performed 1996; at the Julliard School 2011.
• Never performed: Any of Smetana’s other works, including Dalibor (1868); Hubička / The Kiss (1876); and Libuše (1881).

Karel Weis: The Polish Jew (1902): last performed 1921

Jaromir Weinberger: Schwanda, the Bagpiper (1927): last performed 1931

Never performed

• Zdeněk Fibich: Šárka (1887); The Bride of Messina (1884)

English opera

Disappeared from repertoire

Herman Bemberg: Elaine (1892) [in French]: 2 performances, last performed 1895

Dame Ethel Smyth: Der Wald (1902): 2 performances, last performed 1903

• Never performed: The Wreckers (1906)

Never performed

• Michael W. Balfe. The Bohemian Girl (1843)
• William Vincent Wallace. Maritana (1845); Lurline (1860)
• Edward Loder. Raymond and Agnes (1855)
• Sir Arthur Sullivan: Ivanhoe (1891)
• Frederick Delius: A Village Romeo and Juliet (1907)
• Gustav Holst: Sāvitri (1916)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams. Sir John in Love (1929); The Poisoned Kiss (1936); Riders to the Sea (1937)

Other European countries: 19^th to early 20th century

Croatia

Never performed

• Ivan Zajc: Nikola Šubić Zrinjski(1876)

Denmark

Never performed

• Peter Arnold Heise: Drot og marsk (1878)
• Carl Nielsen: Saul og David (1902); Maskarade (1906)

Finland

Never performed

• Aarre Merikanto: Juha (1922)
• Leevi Madetoja: Pohjalaisia (Ostrobothnians) (1923)

Georgia

Never performed

• Zacharia Paliashvili: Abesalom da Eteri (1919); Daisi (1923)

Greece

Never performed

• Pavlos Carrer: Marco Bozzari (1861); Marathon Salamis (comp. 1861, 2003); Frossini (1868)
• Spyridon Samaras: La Martire (1894); Rhea (1908)

Hungary

In repertoire

• Béla Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle (1918)

Never performed

• Ferenc Erkel: Hunyadi László (1844); Bánk Bán (1861)

Poland

Disappeared from repertoire

Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Manru (1901): last performed 1902

Never performed

• Stanisław Moniuszko: Halka (1848); Straszny dwór (1865); Paria (1869)

Romania

Never performed

• Eduard Caudella: Petru Rareș (1889)

Slovenia

Never performed

• Viktor Parma: Urh, grof Celjski (1895); Ksenija (1897)

Spain

Disappeared from repertoire

• Manuel de Falla: La vida breve (1905): last performed 1926
• Enrique Granados: Goyescas (1916): last performed 1916

Never performed

• Emilio Arrieta: Ildegonda (1845); La conquista de Granata (1850)
• Isaac Albéniz: Merlin (1898); Henry Clifford (1895)

Sweden

Never performed

• Ivar Hallström: Den Bergtagna (1874)
• Andreas Hallén: Waldemarsskatten (1899)
• Wilhelm Stenhammar: Gillet på Solhaug (1893); libretto by Ibsen
• Helena Munktell: I Firenze (1889)

20^th century American opera

In repertoire

George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (1935)

John Adams: Nixon in China (1987); The Death of Klinghoffer (1991); El Niño (2000); Doctor Atomic (2005)

Philip Glass

• In repertoire: Satyagraha (1980); Akhnaten (1984)
• Disappeared from repertoire: The Voyage (1992): last performed 1996

Disappeared from repertoire

Frederick Shepherd Converse: The Pipe of Desire (1910): last performed 1910

Horatio Parker: Mona (1912): last performed 1912

Walter Damrosch:

• Cyrano (1913): last performed 1913
• The Man Without a Country (1937): last performed 1938

Victor Herbert: Madeleine (1914): last performed 1914

Reginald De Koven: The Canterbury Pilgrims (1917): last performed 1917

Charles Wakefield Cadman: The Robin Woman: Shanewis (1918): last performed 1919

Joseph Breil: The Legend (1919): last performed 1919

John Hugo: The Temple Dancer (1919): last performed 1919

Henry Kimball Hadley: Cleopatra’s Night (1920): last performed 1921

Deems Taylor:

• The King’s Henchman (1927): last performed 1929
• Peter Ibbetson (1931): last performed 1935

Richard Hageman: Caponsacchi (1931): 2 performances, last performed 1937

Louis Gruenberg: The Emperor Jones (1933): last performed 1934

Howard Hanson: Merry Mount (1933): last performed 1934

Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts (1934): last performed 1973

John Laurence Seymour: In the Pasha’s Garden (1935): last performed 1935

Gian Carlo Menotti:

• Amelia Goes to the Ball (1937): last performed 1939.
• The Island God (1942): last performed 1942 (première).
• The Last Savage (1963): last performed 1965.
• Never performed:
  • The Medium (1946);
  • The Telephone (1947);
  • The Consul (1950), Pulitzer Prize;
  • The Saint of Bleecker Street (1954), Pulitzer Prize

Bernard Rogers: The Warrior (1947): 2 performances, 1947

Carlisle Floyd: Susannah (1955): last performed 1999

Samuel Barber:

• Vanessa (1958): last performed 1965.
• Antony and Cleopatra: last performed 1966 (première).

Never performed

• Scott Joplin: Treemonisha (1911/72)
• William Grant Still: Troubled Island (1949)
• Aaron Copland: The Tender Land (1954)

20^th century opera

In repertoire

Igor Stravinsky: Mavra (1922); The Rake’s Progress (1951)

• Disappeared from repertoire:
  • Le Rossignol (1914): last performed 2004
  • Œdipus Rex (1927): last performed 2004

Alban Berg: Wozzeck (1925); Lulu (1937)

Sergei Prokofiev

• The Gambler (1929): last performed 2008
• War and Peace (1946): last performed 2008
• Never performed:
  • The Love for Three Oranges (1921);
  • Semyon Kotko (1940);
  • The Fiery Angel (1955);
  • Betrothal in a Monastery (1946)

Dmitri Shostakovich: The Nose (1930); Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934)

Franco Alfano: Cyrano de Bergerac (1936)

• Disappeared from repertoire: Madonna Imperia (1927): last performed 1928

Benjamin Britten

• In repertoire: Billy Budd (1951); Peter Grimes (1945)
• Disappeared from repertoire
  • Death in Venice (1973): last performed 1994
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960): last performed 2013
• Never performed: The Rape of Lucretia (1946); Albert Herring (1947); The Turn of the Screw (1954); Gloriana (1953)

Francis Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites (1957)

• Disappeared from repertoire: Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1947): last performed 2002

Anthony Davis: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (1985)

Daniel Catán: Florencia en el Amazonas (1996)

Disappeared from repertoire

Albert Wolff: The Blue Bird (1919): last performed 1921

Erich Wolfgang Korngold:

• Die tote Stadt (1920): last performed 1923
• Violanta (1916): last performed 1927

Maurice Ravel:

• L’Heure espagnole (1911): last performed 1922
• L’Enfant et les sortilèges (1925): last performed 2002

Primo Riccitelli: I Compagnacci (1923): last performed 1924

Ottorino Respighi:

• La campana sommersa (1927): last performed 1929.
• Never performed: Belfagor (1923); La Fiamma (1934)

Ferruccio Busoni: Doktor Faust (1925): last performed 2001

Ernst Krenek: Jonny spielt auf (1927): last performed 1929

Ildebrando Pizzetti: Fra Gherardo (1928): last performed 1929.

• Never performed: Ifigenia (1950); Assassinio nella catedrale (1958); Clitennestra (1965).

Felice Lattuada: Le preziose ridicole (1929): last performed 1931

Kurt Weill: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930): last performed 1995

Arnold Schoenberg: Moses und Aron (1957): last performed 2003

Marvin David Levy: Mourning Becomes Electra (1967): last performed 1967

John Corigliano: The Ghosts of Versailles (1991): last performed 1995

John Harbison: The Great Gatsby (1999): last performed 2002

Never performed

• Alexander von Zemlinsky: Eine florentinische Tragödie (1917); Der Zwerg (1922); Der Kreidekreis (1933)
• Albert Roussel: Padmâvatî (1923)
• Paul Hindemith: Cardillac (1926); Mathis der Maler (1938)
• Karol Szymanowski: Król Roger (1926)
• Othmar Schoeck: Penthesilea (1927)
• Darius Milhaud: Christophe Colomb (1930); Maximilien (1932); Bolivar (1950); etc.
• George Enescu: Œdipe (1936)
• Luigi Dallapiccola: Volo di notte (1940); Il prigioniero (1950); Job (1950); Ulisse (1968)
• Hans Werner Henze: Boulevard Solitude (1952); Der Prinz von Homburg (1960); Elegy for Young Lovers (1961); Der junge Lord (1965); The Bassarids (1966); etc.
• Sir William Walton: Troilus and Cressida (1954)
• Michael Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage (1955); King Priam (1962); The Knot Garden (1970)
• Bohuslav Martinů: The Greek Passion (1961)
• Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Die Soldaten (1965)
• Sir Harrison Birtwistle: Punch and Judy (1968); The Mask of Orpheus (1986); Gawain (1991); The Minotaur (2008)
• Alberto Ginastera: Don Rodrigo (1964), a hit with Domingo in New York; Bomarzo (1967)
• Krzysztof Penderecki: Die Teufel von Loudun (1969)
• György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre (1978)
• Karlheinz Stockhausen: Licht (1981–2012)
• Mark-Anthony Turnage: Greek (1988)
• Mikis Theodorakis: Medea (1990); Elektra (1993); Antigone (1996)

Contemporary opera

In repertoire

Jake Heggie: Dead Man Walking (2000)

Osvaldo Golijov: Ainadamar (2003)

Thomas Adès: The Tempest (2004); The Exterminating Angel (2016)

Brett Dean: Hamlet (2017)

Nico Muhly: Two Boys (2011); Marnie (2017)

Terence Blanchard: Champion (2013); Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2019)

Matthew Aucoin: Eurydice (2020)

Kevin Puts: The Hours (2022)

Kaija Saariaho: L’Amour de loin (2000); Innocence (2021)

Jeanine Tesori: Grounded (2023)

Disappeared from repertoire

William Bolcom: A View from the Bridge (1999): last performed 2002

Tobias Picker: An American Tragedy (2005): last performed 2005

Tan Dun: The First Emperor (2006): last performed 2008

World operas

Africa and the Middle East

Azerbaijan

Never performed

• Uzeyir Hajibeyov: Leyli and Majnun (1908). The first Muslim opera.
• Fikret Amirov: Sevil (1953)

Egypt

Never performed

• Aziz El-Shawan: Anas el-Wugood (1994)

Iran

Never performed

• Hossein Dehlavi: Mana and Mani (1979)

Israel

Never performed

• Josef Tal: Ashmedai (1971)

Nigeria

Never performed

• Akin Euba: Chaka (1970)

South Africa

Never performed

• Kevin Volans: The Man with Footsoles of Wind (1993)
• Mzilikazi Khumalo: Princess Magogo (2002)
• Bongani Ndodana-Breen: Winnie (2011)

Türkiye

Never performed

• Ahmed Adnan Saygun: Özsoy (1934)
• Sabahattin Kalender: Nasrettin Hoca (1990)

Asia

China

Disappeared from repertoire

• Tan Dun: The First Emperor (2006): last performed 2008

Never performed

• Guo Wenjing: Wolf Cub Village (1994)
• Zhou Long: Madame White Snake (2010). Pulitzer Prize.

Indonesia

Never performed

• Tony Prabowo: The King’s Witch (1997)

Japan

Never performed

• Ikuma Dan: Yūzuru [Twilight Crane] (1952)
• Toshiro Mayuzumi: Kinkakuji [The Temple of the Golden Pavilion] (1976)
• Maki Ishii: Tojirareta Fune [The Sealed Ship] (1999)

South Korea

Never performed

• Isang Yun: Sim Tjong (1972)

Mongolia

Never performed

• Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj: Uchirtai gurvan tolgoi [Three Fateful Hills] (1921)
• Byambsuren Sharav: Chinggis Khaan (2003)
• Kh. Bilegjargal: Tears of a Lama
• Bilegiin Damdinsüren: Strife
• Dagvyn Luvsansharav: Bare Truth; Khara Khorum
• Dambiinyam Janchiv: Blue Silk Deel
• Tsogzolyn Natsagdorj: Ogodei Khaan; Princess from a Distant Land

Philippines

Never performed

• Felipe Padilla de Léon: Noli Me Tangere (1957)
• Ryan Cayabyab: Spoliarium: Juan Luna (2003)

Thailand

Never performed

• Somtow Sucharitkul: Madana (2001); Mae Naak (2003); Ayodhya (2006); The Silent Prince (2010); Dan no Ura (2014); The Snow Dragon (2014); DasJati Cycle (2015—).

Latin America

Argentina

In repertoire

• Osvaldo Golijov: Ainadamar (2003)

Never performed

• Alberto Ginastera: Don Rodrigo (1964), a hit with Domingo in New York; Bomarzo (1967)

Cuba

Never performed

• José Maria Vitier: Santa Anna (2008)

Mexico

In repertoire

• Daniel Catán: Florencia en el Amazonas (1996)

Never performed

• Miguel Bernal Jímenez: Tata Vasco (1941)
• Carlos Chávez : The Visitors (1957). Libretto by Thornton Wilder.

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1. “Our Story”, The Metropolitan Opera < https://www.metopera.org/about/the-met> ↩︎
2. “The Met’s 2025–26 Season”, Metropolitan Opera, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMDSUven30Q&ab_channel=MetropolitanOpera ↩︎
3. Vincent Giroud, French Opera: A Short History, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 4. ↩︎
4. Javier C. Hernandez, “Audiences Are Returning to the Met Opera, but Not for Everything”, The New York Times, 13 June 2024 < https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/arts/music/met-opera-attendance.html&gt; ↩︎
5. Javier C. Hernandez, “Met Opera Taps Its Endowment Again to Weather Downturn”, The New York Times, 25 January 2024 < https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/arts/music/met-opera-endowment-finances.html&gt;. ↩︎
6. Ronald Blum, “Met Opera in New York sold 72% of tickets this season, up from 66% and highest since pandemic”, AP, 14 June 2024, https://apnews.com/article/metropolitan-opera-box-office-d695258187a71c9c6aaa7bb5d9b92fd9. ↩︎
7. Annual Report 2018–19, 1819-annual-report.pdf, p. 18. ↩︎
8. See also: Joshua Barone, “Why Is an Entire Age of American Opera Missing at the Met?”, The New York Times, 17 February 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/arts/music/samuel-barber-vanessa-opera.html. ↩︎
9. Alexander Weatherson, “Nini, bloodshed, and La marescialla d’Ancre”, Donizetti Society Newsletter, February 2003 < https://www.donizettisociety.com/Newsletters/articles2003/Donizetti_Society_Newsletter_88_2_2003_pp_28-32.pdf&gt; ↩︎
10. Naples Life, Death & Miracle ↩︎
11. Naples Life, Death & Miracle ↩︎
12. Giovanni Pacini News – Misc ↩︎