Part 1 of this list is here.
Aida (Verdi, 1871) was composed to open the new Cairo Opera House. It was written to a libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, which in turn was based on a scenario developed by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. Because of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 its sets made in Paris arrived too late. The Cairo house opened with Rigoletto. When the sets did arrive, the opera was a huge success. It rapidly spread throughout the world, becoming one of the most popular operas.
Aida manages to be both a grand spectacle and an intimate drama. It balances massive public scenes with deeply personal drama. The emotional conflicts feel real despite the exotic setting – divided loyalty, jealousy, patriotism vs love. The orchestration is brilliant. The opening of the Nile scene features an orchestral introduction unlike any other. Muted violins and violas create a veiled shimmer – not a melody yet, but a hovering sonic mist. The effect is suspended and weightless. The musical lines feel almost improvised, like night sounds rather than a formal melody. When done well, it creates one of Verdi’s most spellbinding atmospheres.
Aida delivers the grand scale audiences love – triumphal marches, huge choruses, ceremonial scenes – yet its real power lies in private emotional moments: Aida’s inner conflict, Amneris’s jealousy, the final tomb duet. Few operas succeed equally at both. It works in traditional spectacle staging or minimalist psychological productions – a sign of structural strength.
Carmen (Bizet, 1875) is by far the greatest French opera ever written. It is widely considered one of the greatest operas of all time because it combines unforgettable music, psychological realism, dramatic pace, and social boldness in a way that still feels modern. Some tunes are instantly recognizable and dramatically purposeful – not just pretty, but character-defining. The Habanera, Seguidilla, Toreador Song, Flower Song, and Act IV music are all both memorable and theatrically effective. The score is consistently inspired from beginning to end – there are virtually no weak stretches.
The concluding scene, Don Jose’s murder of Carmen, has a searing intensity unsupassed in opera and is unlike anything that preceded it. Nobody ever wrote a better opera. The composer’s death at age 36, a month after its unsuccessful premiere, is a blow that French music has yet to recover from.
Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky, 1878) is his only opera to gain admittance to the standard repertoire. It presents the titular protagonist as the archetype of the superfluous man – an arrogant and bored aristocrat whose cynicism leads to the tragic rejection of love and the senseless death of his friend.
The music captures the delicate and real feelings of its characters. The score has tremendous eloquence and emotive power, featuring warm, heartfelt melodies and a masterful use of orchestral color to act as a narrator for the characters’ internal worlds.
The story, based on a verse novel by Pushkin, follows a missed encounter structure: Tatyana loves Onegin and is rejected; years later, Onegin loves a now-married Tatyana and is rejected in turn. This emphasizes themes of regret, the inevitability of fate, and the passivity of time.
The opera’s highlights include ‘The Letter Scene’: A 12-minute soprano aria where Tatyana pours out her heart; it is considered the emotional core of the entire opera. Lensky’s Aria: A wistful and resigned meditation on youth and death sung just before he is killed by his friend Onegin in a duel. Prince Gremin’s Aria: A bass aria in the final act that reflects on the transformative power of love in old age. It is the most frequently performed Russian opera worldwide.
Otello (Verdi, 1887) was completed 16 years after Verdi had retired. Only the presence of Boito’s great libretto, Verdi’s lifelong love of Shakespeare, and the coaxing of the composer’s wife, Giusepina, persuaded him to write another opera. In my opinion, it is the greatest tragic opera ever written. It is regarded as the most successful operatic adaptation of Shakespeare, often argued to improve upon the original play by translating its psychological tension into a musical tour de force.
Composed when Verdi was 74, the opera displays a remarkable freshness of invention. It abandoned the old-fashioned formula of separate arias and recitatives for a fluid, continuous musical drama that never breaks the tension. Some arias and duets flow seamlessly throughthe drama. The duet between Otello and Desdemona that ends Act 1 is the most perfect depiction of marital love ever conceived. It makes Otello’s subsequent disintegration and murder of his faithful wife almost unbearably poignant.
The orchestra is as important a participant as the singers. The opening storm scene is one of the most powerful in history – starting with a titanic fury and a literal cannon shot, it instantly establishes a world of raging passion.
The role of Otello is so physically and emotionally taxing that it is considered a vocal category of its own, requiring a tenor with extraordinary strength and volcanic power. Mario Del Monaco was the greatest interpreter of the role in living memory.
Falstaff (Verdi, 1893) was composed when Verdi was nearing 80. The same combination of forces that had convinced him to write Otello was again marshalled to give birth to Falstaff. The opera is mainly based on The Merry Wives of Windsor, with some borrowing from Henry IV, parts 1 and 2.
It is Verdi’s miraculous” farewell – a comedic masterpiece that sits at the top of the repertoire because it completely reinvented how opera could move. It is so unlike anything Verdi or anyone else had written that it initially puzzled opera goers who waited in vain for traditional arias or set pieces. The contrapuntal writing for many voices was completely new. Toscanini, who immediately recognized the opera’s greatness kept programming it until audiences figured it out. Today, it is universally recognized as the best comic opera ever written – some would place it alongside Mozart’s Figaro. I think its faster pace and unique inventiveness make Falstaff unparalleled.
The orchestra is marvelously clever, mimicking everything from the gurgling of wine in Falstaff’s throat to the shimmering mist of Windsor Park at night. The score captures the humor and humanity of Shakespeare’s great character. The opera ends with a massive 10-part fugue – one of the most complex musical forms – where the characters sing, ‘All the world is a joke’. It is the ultimate philosophical statement of an 80-year-old master looking back at life’s tragedies and choosing to laugh.
“After having relentlessly massacred so many heroes and heroines, I have at last the right to laugh a little.” That was Verdi’s comment about why he ended his career with a comedy.
La Bohème (Puccini, 1896) is the most performed opera at the Met. It’s the opera for those who have never been to the opera. If they don’t like Puccini’s mixture of mirth and pathos, opera is not for them. It perfectly balances relatable human struggles with a lush, unforgettable score. It has maintained its status as a global blockbuster since its 1896 premiere by focusing on ordinary people rather than mythic figures.
Its characters are struggling artists who barely have money enough to eat and to pay the rent, a situation that remains deeply familiar to modern audiences. It captures the intoxication of first love, the torment of lovers’ quarrels, all set to the most melodic and emotionally apposite music conceivable. It’s hard to imagine a world that will lose interest in Puccini’s masterful depiction of youthful love and loss.
Tosca (Puccini, 1900) was Puccini’s next opera after La Bohème. Musicologist Joseph Kerman famously described the opera as a “shabby little shocker”. The late Kerman was a distinguished musicologist who, with the passage of time, is likely to be remembered solely for those three words that show his misunderstanding of a masterpiece.
Tosca takes place in 24 hours. Each of its three acts is in a real Roman location. The story is about politics and the abuse of power. Its villain, the chief of police Baron Scarpia, is one of the greatest stage villains in history. He isn’t a cartoon; he is a terrifyingly realistic example of how authoritarian power can be used for personal lust and corruption. The opera features torture, attempted rape, murder, and suicide. This collection of evil is why some critics, like Kernan, dismissed it as melodrama, but audiences have loved its brutal honesty for more than 120 years.
That Puccini set his still topical story to some of the most dramatic and beautiful music in the operatic literature explains its worth and popularity. For example, the Act I finale is one of the most electrifying moments in all of opera, layering the sacred chanting of a Te Deum by a church congregation over Scarpia’s profane, lustful monologue as cannons blast in the distance.
Tosca is likely to last as long as opera is produced. It is indeed a shocker, but there’s nothing shabby about it.
Pelléas et Mélisande (Debussy, 1902) was the only opera completed by its composer. It is based on the symbolist play of the same name by the Belgian Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck. Musicians view Pelléas et Mélisande as a supreme masterpiece because it fundamentally rewrote the rules of opera. It is often described as a musician’s opera – a work that prioritizes harmonic color and atmospheric truth over traditional dramatic bombast.
Instead of traditional arias or recitatives, Debussy set the text to follow the natural rhythms and inflections of French speech. This sung conversation was a radical departure from the vocal gymnastics of the time. Mary Garden scored a triumph as Mélisande the magnitude of which still reverberates to this day.
Despite all my efforts to assimilate this opera, it still puts me to sleep. So why is it here? Because many musicians and opera-goers whose opinions I respect think it a masterpiece. My failure to appreciate it must be due to some internal dysfunction that defeats Debussy’s attempt at emotional connection.
Madama Butterfly (Puccini, 1904) was first performed at La Scala, where it had the biggest failure in the history of the house. Puccini withdrew the opera, revised it, and had its second performance in Brescia, where it was a success. He continued to revise the opera until it became the supreme masterwork it is. It has gone around the world and become one of the most popular operas ever written. It is arguably Puccini’s greatest masterpiece. No other of his works focuses on one character as does Butterfly on its soprano lead.
The passionate intensity it generates is unsurpassed. The long love duet that ends Act 1 is filled with inspired melodies that grip the listener in an emotional vise. Butterfly’s confrontation with Sharpless, where he fails to convince her that her supposed husband will not return could drain blood from a rock. The humming chorus and Butterfly’s death scene are examples of Puccini’s genius at both music and stagecraft. There is no better opera than this one.
Richard Strauss’s first two operas were not successful. He was famous for his outstanding tone poems, but had yet to make his mark in opera. He hit theatrical gold with his next three. Salome premiered in 1905. It is a one-act opera. The libretto is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play, Salomé is written in French. Strauss used a German translation by Hedwig Lachmann. He cut almost one-half of the original text to heighten the dramatic pace, but he kept Wilde’s striking, often repetitive dialogue intact.
The opera is a landmark of musical modernism, renowned for its explosive orchestration and psychological intensity. It pushed the boundaries of tonality and theater, exploring themes of obsessive desire, depravity, and the demonic feminine. At its 1907 US premiere, the Metropolitan Opera banned the work after just one performance due to its “moral stench”. It didn’t return until 1934, when its “moral stench” had dissipated and the piece was recognized for the unique work it is, at least until Strauss’s next opera. Its focus on morbid psychological states paved the way for more radical works like Berg’s Wozzeck.
Elektra (Richard Strauss, 1909) took opera to the brink of tonality and a bit beyond. It is a landmark of early 20th-century Expressionism, representing the extreme limit of post-Wagnerian tonality before the composer returned to a more conservative style. It was the first of fifteen legendary collaborations between Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who adapted his own play based on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy. Strauss uses a massive 120-piece orchestra that creates an orchestral effect so mighty that it functions as a character itself, often mirroring or overwhelming the vocal lines. The three protagonists – Elektra, her sister Chrysothemis, and her doomed mother Klytämnestra are pushed to the limits of vocal expression.
Its first appearance at the Met in 1932 was triumphant. The famous music critic of the New York Times, Olin Downes, concluded his long review of the Met premiere as follows:
The opera “Elektra” had a signal and historic triumph yesterday in the Metropolitan Opera. House. The Greek drama of Elektra’s vengeance upon her mother and her mother’s paramour for the slaying of Agamemnon had an atmosphere of suspense, tragedy and the workings of fate, felt from the first, and accumulating doom. The performance was a great achievement. The public realized this, acclaiming opera and interpretation. Thus “Elektra” at the Metropolitan, came belatedly into its own.
As both Salome and Elektra are one-act operas, they were typically paired with another one-act opera. Salome was often given with Gianni Schicchi – see below. But inflation caught up with both Strauss’s one acters in the 50s and thereafter they were performed alone.
Strauss must have frightened himself at the musical spot where the two preceding operas had taken him, for his next work was a three-act comedy looking back at the Vienna of Johann Strauss, complete with waltzes, even though the story was set in the 18th century. Der Rosenkavalier was first performed in 1911 and has remained Strauss’s most popular opera ever since.
Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose) is a lush, bittersweet comic opera that balances an 18th-century comedy of manners with the complex psychological depth of early 20th-century modernism. The Marschallin, an aristocratic woman in her early 30s, realizes her young lover, Octavian (he’s about 17), will eventually leave her for someone his own age. Her Act I monologue on time is a pivotal moment of introspection.
The plot mocks the fading aristocracy through the boorish Baron Ochs and explores the social climbing of the newly wealthy bourgeois, represented by Faninal. Ochs is another German comic villain who is totally unlikable. The opera is a bit long and occasionally loses momentum, but at its best, it’s glorious. The final trio is so good that Strauss asked for it to be played at his funeral. It was.
Gianni Schicchi (Puccini, 1918) was the third of three one-act operas (Il Trittico) by Puccini that had their premieres at the Met. Puccini had displayed his talent for comedy in La Bohème. Hence, it’s no surprise that his only comedy was a success from the start and is the most performed of his three one-act operas.
The plot is inspired by a brief mention in Canto XXX of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, where the real-life historical Schicchi is seen in the Eighth Circle of Hell for the sin of impersonation. Puccini and his librettist, Giovacchino Forzano, reimagined him as a clever folk hero who outwits the greedy, aristocratic Donati family. The story follows the Donati relatives as they discover their wealthy patriarch, Buoso, has left his fortune to a monastery. They hire Schicchi to impersonate the deceased man and dictate a new will, only for Schicchi to bequeath the most valuable assets to himself (ensuring a dowry for his daughter, Lauretta).
The opera’s most famous aria, ‘O mio babbino caro’, is a soaring, lyrical masterpiece sung by Lauretta. In context, however, it is a tool of manipulation – she uses her father’s love for her to force him into the illegal scheme. He really doesn’t take much persuading. Gianni Schicchi is an ensemble piece requiring precise comic timing from 9 to 12 singers, often on stage simultaneously. The opera is so good that it ranks close to Falstaff.
Well, that’s it – 25 operas that I think are truly exceptional. As I said at the beginning of this list, it’s subjective and solely the result of my personal tastes and biases. For Part1 of this compilation, go here.
