Scores for Orchestra

IL MATRIMONIO SEGRETO (THE SECRET MARRIAGE) by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) is his only work still to be regularly performed today and arguably among the greatest 18th century opera buffa. The dramma...

Italian composer Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) wrote L'amico Fritz in 1891 only one year after his masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana began the Versimo movement. A charming light opera in three acts, L'am...

Composed by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) in 1830, the two-act opera I CAPULETTI E I MONTECCHI (THE CAPULETS AND THE MONTAGUES) stands as one of only two successful opera adaptations of Shakespeare's R...

Gioacchino Rossini's (1792-1868) last comic opera LE COMTE ORY, set in rural France at the time of the Crusades, tells the story of Count Ory, who attempts to seduce a Countess Adèle as she awaits the...

Hoping to repeat the success of his first opera LE VILLI, the publisher Ricordi commissioned Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) to write EDGAR, SC 62, based on a libretto by Ferdinando Fontana after Alfred d...

MADAMA BUTTERFLY, one of the most popular operas of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), is the story of the conflicting expectations of Lieutenant Pinkerton, an American naval officer, and Madame Butterfly (...

The fourth and final opera of Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN (THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG, or THE RING CYCLE for short), the three-act drama GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG (TWILIGHT OF THE GODS) p...

Carl Nielsen's (1865-1931) three-act opera buffa MASKARADE (MASQUERADE) was written between 1904 and 1906, though Nielsen had first begun to consider an opera based on Ludvig Holberg's play of the sam...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote the two-act opera DON GIOVANNI, K. 527, in 1787 following a commission from Prague impresario Pasquale Bondini. With the success of THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, Mo...

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) originally wrote Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) in 1910 as a piano duet for the Godebski children, Mimi (6) and Jean (7). In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work into a five-piece...

In 1907, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) began to compose his one-act theatrical piece, L'HEURE ESPAGNOLE (The Spanish Hour), after his opera-loving father suffered a stroke. It has been suggested that this...

The ballet Romeo and Juliet was originally written by Sergei Sergejewitsch Prokofjew (1891-1953) in 1935. However, running afoul of the Soviet censors who disliked the happier ending (departing from S...

LA RONDINE (THE SWALLOW) is a comic opera composed by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), with the Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, translated and adapted from a German libretto by Alfred M. Willner and H...

MADAMA BUTTERFLY, one of the most popular operas of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), is the story of the conflicting expectations of Lieutenant Pinkerton, an American naval officer, and Madame Butterfly (...

Finished in 1848 and premiered in 1950 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...

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...

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) originally wrote the 2-act opera La Vida Breve (Life is Short or The Brief Life) between 1904 and 1905 for a composition competition which offered a large monetary prize an...

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) completed the five-act opera Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) in 1867. With a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré, the opera tells the tragic story of Shakespear...

LA BOHÈME (THE BOHEMIAN), one of the most beloved and commercially-successful operas, is based on the 1851 novel Scenes of Bohemian Life by Henri Murger. With a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe G...

SUOR ANGELICA (SISTER ANGELICA) is a one-act opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). The second opera in a trio known as Il trittico (The Triptych), each one dealing with the concealment of a death, the...

DIE LUSTIGEN WEIBER VON WINDSOR (THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR), the only German-language opera by Otto Nicolai (1810-1849), was primarily composed in the years 1845 and 1846. Set to a libretto by Salomo...

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master-Singers of Nuremberg) is a music drama/opera in three acts by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Taking nearly four and a half hours to perform in its entirety, thi...

The Ride of the Valkyries refers to the beginning of act 3 of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas constituting Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. As a separate piece, the "Ride" is often...

This overture, written two days before the fairy-tale opera's 1791 premiere, is among the best known in the classical literature. This version is edited by Steven Rosenhause. Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2:...