Opera Timeline

Jacopo Peri's opera, Euridice , the earliest to survive complete, is performed at the Pitti Palace in Florence on the occasion of the wedding of Maria de’ Medici and Henri IV of France. Read more...

Claudio Monteverdi's opera, Orfeo, is performed before an exclusive audience at the Ducal palace in Mantua. Read more...

Monteverdi's last opera, L’incoronazione di Poppea is performed at the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice. Read more...

Roman composer Luigi Rossi's Italian opera Orfeo, is produced at the French court. In keeping with local style, the opera includes a ballet scene. Read more...

Francesco Cavalli's enormously successful opera Giasone has its première at the Teatro S Cassiano in Venice. Read more...

Jean-Baptiste Lully's Alceste has its première at the Paris Opéra. Read more...

Lully's Atys has its première at St Germain-en-Laye, Paris. Read more...

John Blow's tragic opera, Venus and Adonis, today considered the first English opera, has its première, either in London or at the court of Windsor. Read more...

Lully's final collaboration with the librettist Quinault, the tragédie lyrique Armide, has its première at the Paris Opéra. Read more...

Henry Purcell composes his opera Dido and Aeneas for performance by the students at a girls' school in Chelsea. Read more...

Purcell's semi-opera, The Fairy-Queen, adapted from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, has its première at the Queen’s Theatre in London. Read more...

Alessandro Scarlatti's opera L’Eraclea is perfomed at Naples, Teatro S Bartolomeo. In the tradition of earlier, Venetian, opera it mixes comic scenes into the othewise serious story. Read more...

Radamisto, Handel's first opera for the newly formed Royal Academy of Music has its première in London. Read more...

A. Scarlatti's, Griselda, has its première at the Teatro Capranica, in Rome. Although very rarely performed today, Scarlatti's operas were enormously popular and influential in their own day. Read more...

Handel's Rodelinda has its première at the King’s Theatre, London. Read more...

The Beggar’s Opera, a ballad opera in three acts, arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch to a libretto by John Gay, takes London by storm. Read more...

G. B. Pergolesi's intermezzo La serva padrona is performed between the acts of his opera seria Il prigioniero superbo at Naples, Teatro S Bartolomeo. La serva padrona was one of the most popular intermezzos in the 18th century and has become the 'textbook' intermezzo familiar to most students of music. Read more...

Première at the Paris Opéra of Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet, Les Indes galantes, a fascinating window on 18th century exoticism. Read more...

Niccolò Piccinni's, La buona figliuola has its première at the Teatro delle Dame in Rome. The libretto, by the great Carlo Goldoni, is adapted from Samuel Richardson's hugely popular English novel, Pamela. Read more...

Christoph Willibald Gluck's reform opera Alceste has its première at the Vienna, Burgtheater. Read more...

Probable performance of the twelve-year-old Mozart's singspiel Bastien und Bastienne at the home of Dr Franz Anton Mesmer, the inventor of ‘magnetism therapy’, which Mozart would later parody in Così fan tutte. Read more...

Mozart's first full opera buffa, La finta semplice, to a libretto based on Goldoni is performed at the Archbishop's palace in Salzburg. The day is uncertain but it was probably the first of May. Read more...

Mozart's first opera seria, Mitridate, re di ponte, is a success in Milan despite the composer's youth and the opera's running time of six hours. Read more...

Joseph Haydn's Il mondo della luna has its première at Eszterháza. Haydn's operas were mostly composed to the taste of his employers at Eszterháza. Although they never achieved the international stature of his instrumental works, or of the operas of his younger contemporary Mozart, they have begun to receive more attention in recent years. Read more...

Mozart's first mature opera, Idomeneo has its première in Munich at the Residenztheater. Read more...

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail has its première at the Vienna Burgtheater. Read more...

Giovanni Paisiello's, Il barbiere di Siviglia has its première at the Hermitage, St Petersburg. Though it would be eclipsed by Rossini's later setting of the same story, the opera was an enormous success at the time. Read more...

Haydn's final opera, Armida has its première at Eszterháza. Read more...

André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry's rescue opera Richard Coeur-de-Lion has its première at the Comédie-Italienne, Paris. Read more...

Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, the first of his three great collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, has its première at the Vienna Burgtheater. Read more...

Mozart's Don Giovanni has its première at the National Theatre, Prague. Although the legendary title character serves as the central force of the story, it is the three women, whose lives are altered through their encounters with him, who live in the memory. Read more...

Première of Antonio Salieri's Axur, re d’Ormus to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. Da Ponte and Salieri are both best known to modern audiences as Mozart's collaborator and competitor, respectively. But in late 18th-century Vienna, both were highly respected artists in their own right, as the contemporary success of this opera shows. Read more...

Mozart's Così fan tutte, which then and now is as irresistable as it is controversial, has its première in Vienna, at the Burgtheater. Read more...

Produced just weeks before his final opera, the more famous Zauberflöte, Mozart's last opera seria, La clemenza di Tito, has its premère at the National Theatre in Prague. Read more...

Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, has its première at the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. An allegory set in no real locality or historical period, the work was intended by the composer, and by librettist and fellow Freemason Emanuel Schikaneder, as a coded representation of Freemasonry. Read more...

Domenico Cimerosa's Il matrimonio segreto has its première at the Vienna Burgtheater, 7 February 1792. Read more...

Beethoven's only opera, the rescue opera Fidelio, has its premère at the Vienna Theater an der Wien. Read more...

Gioachino Rossini's L’italiana in Algeri has its premère at Teatro S Benedetto, Venice. Despite an unenthusiastic welcome in Venice, the opera went on to great success and was the first of the composer's operas to be produced in Germany. Read more...

Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, set to the same libretto as Paisiello's opera of 1782, has its première at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. Read more...

Rossini's much loved setting of the Cinderella story, La Cenerentola, has its première at the Teatro Valle in Rome. Read more...

Carl Maria von Weber's 'magic opera', Der Freischütz, has its première at Berlin, Schauspielhaus. Read more...

Vincenzo Bellini's Il pirata has its première at La Scala, beginning a phenomenally successful six-year collaboration between the composer and librettist Felice Romani. Read more...

Rossini's grand opera, Guillaume Tell, has its première at the Paris Opéra. Read more...

Gaetano Donizetti's Anna Bolena, one of his several operas on subjects from English history, has its première at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. Read more...

Bellini's opera Norma, which includes the great coloratura aria 'Casta diva', has its première at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Read more...

Bellini's La somnambula has its première at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. Bellini, who died before his 34th birthday, produced a string of lasting favourites in just nine years from 1827 to 1835. Read more...

Giacomo Meyerbeer's first great success, Robert le diable, has its première at Paris Opéra. Read more...

Donizetti's L’elisir d’amore has its première in the Teatro Cannobiana, Milan. Read more...

Bellini's final opera, I Puritani, with its now famous 'mad scene', has its première at the Théâtre Italien, Paris. Read more...

Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor has its première at the Teatro S Carlo in Naples. The obbligato accompaniment to the famous mad scene, usually heard on flute and performed on that instrument in the first production, was originally composed for glass harmonica, which contributes to the eery quality of the scene. Read more...

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka's A Life for the Tsar, considered the first full Russian opera, has its première at the Bol’shoy Theatre in St Petersburg. Read more...

Meyerbeer's grand opera Les Huguenots has its première at the Paris Opéra. Read more...

Der Fliegende Holländer, Richard Wagner's first mature opera, has its première at the Königliches Sächsisches Hoftheater, in Dresden. Read more...

Première at the Teatro della Pergola, Florence, of Macbeth, the first of Verdi's three great operas based on the plays of Shakespeare. Read more...

Première at Teatro La Fenice in Venice of Verdi's Rigoletto, based on Victor Hugo's novel Le roi s'amuse. Read more...

Verdi's La traviata, composed, it seems, in not much more than six weeks, has its première at Teatro La Fenice, Venice. Read more...

Charles Gounod's most popular opera, Faust, has its première in Paris at the Théâtre Lyrique. Read more...

Première of Hector Berlioz's grand opera Les Troyens at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris. Read more...

Wagner's Tristan und Isolde has its première in Munich, at the Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater. Read more...

Verdi's Aida has its première at the newly opened Cairo Opera House. Read more...

Johann Strauss's light opera, Die Fledermaus has its première at Theater an der Wien, Vienna. Read more...

Modest Musorgsky's Boris Godunov has its première at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. Read more...

Georges Bizet's Carmen has its première in Paris at the Opéra-Comique. Carmen is arguably the world's best known opera heroine. Read more...

First performance of Wagner’s complete Ring cycle at Bayreuth, 13–17 August 1876. Read more...

Pyotr Il'ych Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin (Eugene Onegin) has its première at the Malïy Theatre in Moscow. An earlier performance had been given in 1879 by students at the Moscow Conservatory. Read more...

Wagner's final opera, Parsifal has its première at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. A 30-year embargo placed on performances outside Bayreuth was ignored by a number of opera houses, including the Metropolitan in New York, which staged it for the first time in 1903. Read more...

Première at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, of Jules Massenet's Manon. Read more...

Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades has its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. Read more...

Pietro Mascagni's one-act verismo opera, Cavalleria rusticana, has its première at the Teatro Costanzi, Rome. Read more...

Ruggero Leoncavallo's I pagliacci has its première at the Teatro Dal Verme, Milan. Based, like Cavalleria rusticana, on a true story, Pagliacci was composed with the earlier opera in mind, and the two are linked in modern performance tradition. Read more...

Puccini's Manon Lescaut has its première at La Scala. When his publisher tried to dissuade him from composing an opera on a subject that had already had great success in a treatment by Massenet (see 1884, in this timeline), Puccini is said to have replied 'Why shouldn’t there be two operas about her? A woman like Manon can have more than one lover.’ The opera's success has borne him out. Read more...

Verdi's great comic portrait, Falstaff, has its première. Read more...

Puccini's perennial favourite, La bohème, has its première at the Teatro Regio, Turin. Read more...

Puccini's Tosca has its première at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. The libretto is based on the play of the same name by Victorien Sardou, who created the title character for the great actress Sarah Bernhardt. Read more...

Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is given its première at the Opéra-Comique, Paris. Read more...

Puccini's Madama Butterfly has its première at La Scala. Read more...

Richard Strauss’s opera Salome has its première at the Dresden Hofoper. Read more...

Ethel Smyth's opera The Wreckers has its première (in German, as Standrecht) at the Neues Theater, Leipzig. Read more...

R. Strauss's Elektra is premièred at the Dresden Hofoper. Read more...

R. Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier has its première at the Königliches Opernhaus, Dresden. The opera was a favourite of the composer, and its glorious final trio was performed at a memorial service after his death. Read more...

Hans Pfitzner's opera, Palestrina, a fictional account of the Council of Trent and the composition of Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, has its première at the Prinzregententheater, Munich. Read more...

Charles Wakefield Cadman's opera Shanewis has its première at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. The opera is loosely based on the life of the Cherokee/Creek mezzo-soprano Tsianina Redfeather, who advised Cadman on the work. Read more...

Béla Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle has its première at the Opera in Budapest. Read more...

Alban Berg's opera, Wozzeck has its première at the Staatsoper in Berlin. Read more...

Puccini's final opera, Turandot left incomplete at the composer's death and completed by Franco Alfano, has its première at La Scala under the baton of Toscaninni, who stops the opera at the death of the slave Liù, where Puccini's own completed score ends. Read more...

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Die Dreigroschenoper opens to great success in Berlin. It would become one of the longest-running musical shows in Broadway history. Read more...

Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex is given its first performance in an unstaged production at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, Paris. The first staged performance was at the Vienna Staatsoper on 23 Feb 1928. Read more...

Virgil Thomson's 'opera to be sung', Four Saints in Three Acts, is premièred in Hartford, CT. Read more...

George Gershwin's magnum opus, his folk opera Porgy and Bess, has its première in New York. Read more...

Berg's opera, Lulu has its première at the Stadttheater in Zürich. Read more...

Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes receives its first performance at London's Sadler's Wells. Read more...

Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress has its première at La Fenice, Venice. The libretto, by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman is based on a series of paintings by William Hogarth (1732–3). Read more...

Britten's Gloriana, an opera about Elizabeth I of England commissioned to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II, has its première at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Read more...

Michael Tippett's King Priam has its première at the Coventry Festival. Read more...

Philip Glass's first opera, Einstein on the Beach, has its première at the Avignon Festival. Read more...

Thea Musgrave's opera Mary Queen of Scots has its première at the Edinburgh Festival. Read more...

Harrison Birtwistle's Mask of Orpheus has its première at the London Coliseum. Read more...

John Adams' opera Nixon in China, a treatment of the US President's 1972 meeting with Chairman Mao, has its première at the Houston Grand Opera. Read more...