Kalmus Opera Library

This grand opera about love stymied by the political intrigue of Spain during the Inquisition, is well-known for the many versions that have been created to accommodate the work's length. Originally w...

This grand opera about love stymied by the political intrigue of Spain during the Inquisition, is well-known for the many versions that have been created to accommodate the work's length. Originally w...

NABUCCO is the four-act Italian-language opera by Giuseppe Verdi that permanently established Verdi's reputation as a composer. The opera, borrowed from the Bible, follows the plight of the Jews as th...

NABUCCO is the four-act Italian-language opera by Giuseppe Verdi that permanently established Verdi's reputation as a composer. The opera, borrowed from the Bible, follows the plight of the Jews as th...

VESTAS FEUER (THE VESTAL FLAME) for vocal quartet and orchestra is the only surviving fragment from a planned opera by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), set to a libretto by the dramatist and impresar...

ALCINA, HWV 34, is an opera seria in three acts, composed by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) in 1735. With a libretto borrowed from the Italian opera L'isola di Alcina by Riccardo Broschi, the work...

Gianni Schicchi is a one-act comic opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). The final opera in a trio known as Il trittico (The Triptych), each one dealing with the concealment of a death, the work premi...

Gianni Schicchi is a one-act comic opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). The final opera in a trio known as Il trittico (The Triptych), each one dealing with the concealment of a death, the work premi...

Claude Debussy's (1862-1918) Pelléas et Mélisande adapted Maurice Maeterlinck's play of the same name in which Prince Golaud marries a mysterious young woman, Mélisande, but becomes jealous of his hal...

Claude Debussy's (1862-1918) Pelléas et Mélisande adapted Maurice Maeterlinck's play of the same name in which Prince Golaud marries a mysterious young woman, Mélisande, but becomes jealous of his hal...

Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel, The Bri...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote the music to COSI FAN TUTTE (So do they all), his third collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, only after his contemporaty Antonio Salieri rejected t...

Tosca is a melodramatic opera in three acts set in Rome in June, 1800, with the Kingdom of Naple's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder...

Tosca is a melodramatic opera in three acts set in Rome in June, 1800, with the Kingdom of Naple's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder...

La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) is based on La Dame aux camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. The opera was originally titled Violetta, after the main character. Piave...

Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) is an 1859 three act opera by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) with a libretto by Antonio Somma. Initially based on Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's 1833 five...

Finished in 1848 and premiered in 1850 in Weimar, Germany, Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) LOHENGRIN tells a story of a tragic medieval German romance in the Knight of the Swan tradition. Elsa, a princes...

DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER (THE FLYING DUTCHMAN), WWV 63, had two sources of inspiration for Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The first was a short story by Heinrich Heine, based on the folk legend of a sea-c...

DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER (THE FLYING DUTCHMAN), WWV 63, had two sources of inspiration for Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The first was a short story by Heinrich Heine, based on the folk legend of a sea-c...

DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER (THE FLYING DUTCHMAN), WWV 63, had two sources of inspiration for Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The first was a short story by Heinrich Heine, based on the folk legend of a sea-c...

While it scandalized Parisian audiences at its premiere by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on March 3rd, 1875, Georges Bizet's (1838-1875) Carmen became, a mere decade later, one of the most popular and fr...

While it scandalized Parisian audiences at its premiere by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on March 3rd, 1875, Georges Bizet's (1838-1875) Carmen became, a mere decade later, one of the most popular and fr...

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) composed his popular two-act opera buffa L'elisir d'amore hastily over six weeks in 1832 for a premiere that took place on May 12 of that year at the Teatro della Canobbi...

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) composed his popular two-act opera buffa L'elisir d'amore hastily over six weeks in 1832 for a premiere that took place on May 12 of that year at the Teatro della Canobbi...

Don Pasquale, regarded as one of the crowning gems of comic opera, had its first performance on January 3, 1843 by the Theatre-Italien at the Salle Ventadour in Paris. Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) co...