Donation Timeline



  • 1600

    Euridice

    by Jacopo Peri

    The earliest surviving opera, setting the stage for the Orpheus and Euridice myth to be the foundational operatic story.

    Year claimed by Ted


  • 1601

    No Opera

    The basic precepts of opera were created by a group of artists and intellectuals known as the 'Florentine Camerata'. They hoped, in a classic Renaissance project, to recreate in modern form the sung drama of Ancient Greece. Although what resulted would have been unrecognisable to Euripides, it was marvellous anyway. 1601 was a poorer year for not having any premieres.

    Year claimed by Emrys


  • 1602

    Euridice

    by Giulio Caccini

    Caccini set the same libretto (the text of an opera) as Jacopo Peri had two years earlier. Giulio has now been eclipsed by his daughter Francesca, who was probably the first woman to write an opera. Apparently Giulio rushed his Euridice into print to beat Jacopo Peri's version (1600).

    Year claimed by Jane Whitaker


  • 1603

    No Opera

    One of the constituent elements that came together to open the door to the birth of opera was the idea, championed by Vincenzo Galilei, father of Galileo, of having one voice sing at a time. This allowed for the intelligible transmission of plot. Thank you Vincenzo, for two great contributions to European history!

    Year claimed


  • 1604

    No Opera

    So many works throughout opera's history have explored the story of Orpheus, the master musician who could control nature with his compositions. It's natural if you think of it like this: how could one justify setting a play to music? Well, if the character would be singing anyway! "Diegetic" music is a film theory term, which applies to music that the characters can hear. Because of opera's foundational concern with the Orpheus myth, we can see "diegesis" as one of the master themes of opera. Countless operas explore the place of music in our lives and its power, stretching from the earliest Orphic operas, right through to George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill (2006), which is a retelling of the Pied Piper story.

    Year claimed by Fliss Dunk


  • 1605

    No Opera

    Sadly no operas were premiered in 1605, but it's a good opportunity to think about the basics. Opera has voices, and instruments, and it has stage images. The relationship between the 3 began pretty simply - the characters emote, the orchestra supports, and the stage images match. As things move further and further along, the relationship between the three elements becomes more complex, opening up a whole range of multilayered theatrical effects.

    Year claimed


  • 1606

    La stiava

    by Francesca Caccini

    Francesca Caccini premiered The Slave Girl in 1607 at Pisa for the entertainment of the Medici Court. Sadly the music has been lost, and we only know of the opera's existence because 20 years later Caccini wrote to her librettist asking for the text. Caccini was 19 when she wrote this opera. Contrary to the neoclassicism of Monteverdi's Orfeo, premiered under similar conditions, Caccini's story was a contemporary one that focused on the slave trade.

    Year claimed by Jasmin Rodgman


  • 1607

    L'Orfeo

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    Regarded as the first operatic masterwork, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo evolved the form of a complete musical drama, establishing him as a crucial figure in the history of opera.

    Year claimed by Will Searle & Ellie Neate


  • 1608

    L'Arianna

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    Monteverdi's lost second opera. He claimed that writing it under huge time pressure almost killed him. Some things never change.

    Year claimed


  • 1609

    No Opera

    Another year without opera. But for £12 you can claim it! Help us make sure there isn't another year like 1609. A pox on that blasted year!

    Year claimed by Mark Seow


  • 1610

    No Opera

    A handy thing to know about opera is that for much of its history (and even to some extent today) there were two main modes in the relationship of text to music. Recitativo (pronounced reh-chit-at-eevo - recitative in english), and aria (aah-ree-aah). Recitativo, often shortened to "recit" (reh-sit), uses speech rhythms with minimal accompaniment, and this is where the plot happens. In arias, the characters pause, emote, and consider their situations in longer musical lines, often with repetition.

    Year claimed by Sarah Joynt-Bowe


  • 1611

    No Opera

    In 1611 Shakespeare premiered The Tempest in London, but nothing seems to have been entered into the operatic record. Poor inhabitants of 1611, opera lovers can only apologise to you. With hindsight, it would have been better if you'd been able to watch an opera too.

    Year claimed by Fiona Evans


  • 1612

    No Opera

    At the beginning of its history, opera was paid for by princes and aristocrats who wished to commission things to glorify their name and to celebrate occasions such as marriage. As time went on, this shifted, with the paying public becoming increasingly important, with patronage still playing an important role. In the 20th century things shifted again as opera came to be viewed as an important cultural inheritance worthy of state support. With government funding for opera in decline across Europe, is it time for a new model?

    Year claimed by Rupert Christiansen


  • 1613

    No Opera

    For £16 you can claim the year 1613, and have your name represented here entirely alone, without competition from a composer.

    Year claimed by Evanna


  • 1614

    No Opera

    One way of thinking about opera is that it's a 426-year project to explore different ways of placing music and text into relationship to create drama. Today's opera composers can draw on a lineage of experimentation in that direction, while pushing the boat out to explore new possibilities and relationships. One way of deciding if something is or isn't an opera is to ask if a work tries something in this area.

    Year claimed by Storytime Soundtracks


  • 1615

    Ballo delle zingare

    by Francesca Caccini

    Francesca Caccini and Artemisia Gentileschi both performed as dancers in this court spectacle.

    Year claimed by Kezia Bienek


  • 1616

    Orfeo dolente

    by Domenico Belli

    Inconsolable Orpheus. Domenico Belli, a renowned composer of court spectacles, turned to the new dramatic form with another retelling of the Orpheus myth about a musician who travels to the underworld to retrieve his lost bride, a story that has fascinated composers ever since.

    Year claimed by Fiona Evans


  • 1617

    No Opera

    In 1617 Monteverdi was working on the opera Le Nozze di Tetide, which remained unfinished and unperformed. Even the greatest operatic composers leave some works in the drawer.

    Year claimed by Dan D'Souza


  • 1618

    No Opera

    As Terry Pratchett said, "opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong." We couldn't agree more - but sadly in 1618, those things must have gone wrong, because no opera appears to have been premiered.

    Year claimed by Sophie Peel


  • 1619

    La morte d'Orfeo

    by Stefano Landi

    The Death of Orpheus. A tragicomic opera, this piece treated the Orpheus myth in a completely different way to earlier operas, instead focussing on what happens to the musician after he fails to save Euridice.

    Year claimed by Andy McTaggart


  • 1620

    Andromeda

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    It seems that Monteverdi wasn't overly enthusiastic about this project, which premiered at Carnival in Mantua. He tried to get the commission canceled. The music doesn't survive.

    Year claimed by Seabass


  • 1621

    Ghirlandetta amorosa

    by Fabio Constantini

    Francesca Caccini contributed an aria to this opera which was premiered in Orvieto. Translation: The Loving Garland.

    Year claimed by Catherine Harrison & Orlando Gibbons


  • 1622

    Il martirio di S. Agata

    by Francesca Caccini

    The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha. Caccini premiered this work in Florence, which is now sadly lost, like most of her work.

    Year claimed by Will Searle & Ellie Neate


  • 1623

    No Opera

    Astronomers in 1623 probably failed to see a great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn near the Sun, because the telescope had only just been invented. It was the same for opera, alas, and no one saw one this year, as it had only recently been invented.

    Year claimed by Todd Johnson


  • 1624

    Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    The Combat of Tancredi and Clorinda. The distinguishing feature of this short scena is the musical depiction of battle, including the second known use of pizzicato - where string players pluck the strings with their fingers rather than using their bows.

    Year claimed by Oskar & Helen


  • 1625

    La liberazione di Ruggiero

    by Francesca Caccini

    The Liberation of Ruggiero. The first opera composer by a woman that premiered publicly. This work cast a long shadow in operatic history for powerful and dangerous central female characters. Today Caccini is beginning to get the recognition she deserves, after centuries of neglect.

    Year claimed by Ruth Mulholland


  • 1626

    La catena d'Adone

    by Domenico Mazzocchi

    The Chains of Adonis. Mazzochi tried with this work, premiered in Rome, to create a varied flow of arias (songs) and recitatives (speech rhythms) to counter what he saw as boring Florentine operas.

    Year claimed by Love Ssega


  • 1627

    Die Dafne

    by Heinrich Schütz

    Possibly the first opera written in German, in a translation based on the original libretto for Jacopo Peri's Dafne. it was lost until reconstructed by Reinhard Seehafer in 2007

    Year claimed by Tom & Sophie Cooper


  • 1628

    La Flora

    by Marco da Gagliano

    by Jacopo Peri

    This opera was written for a Medici - Farnese marriage and was the last spectacle to be staged in the Teatro Mediceo in the Uffizi Palace in Florence. The piece was written to replace another by Jacopo Peri, which was cancelled because Francesca Caccini, in a feud with the librettist, convinced the mother of the bride that the proposed libretto made subversive suggestions. Opera is truly the place where high art and petty squabbles mingle in a perfect union.

    Year claimed


  • 1629

    La Risonanti Sfere

    by Giovanni Battista Robletti

    Translation: The Resonant Spheres. Francesca Caccini contributed an aria to this opera by Robletti.

    Year claimed


  • 1630

    Proserpina rapita

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    Written for the growing opera scene in Venice, with a libretto by Giulio Strozzi, father of the composer Barbara Strozzi. The Rape of Proserpine.

    Year claimed by Hugo Pattinson


  • 1631

    No Opera

    After opera's creation as a genre in the aristocratic halls of Tuscany, and in particular Florence, activity moved to Venice, the place where opera stabilised as a form and attracted a growing public audience. It wasn't long before opera became central to life in that watery city.

    Year claimed


  • 1632

    Il Sant'Alessio

    by Stefano Landi

    Stefano Landi followed up his 1619 comic opera with the first opera written on an historical subject, Saint Alexius. He kept his trademark comic scenes and added psychological complexity.

    Year claimed by John Wilkie


  • 1633

    No Opera

    This year marked the death of Jacopo Peri, composer of the first opera.

    Year claimed by Hannah Barkley


  • 1634

    The Triumph of Peace

    by James Shirley

    Just as in France the early history of opera is connected to the Ballet de cour, in England things were bound up with the masque, an elaborate court spectacle serving to celebrate state power, in which royals and aristocrats would themselves act. This masque was paid for by parliament, a fact which scandalised the Puritans.

    Year claimed


  • 1635

    Ballet de la Merlaison

    by Louis XIII

    Ballets de cour (Court Ballets) were highly involved spectacles that used music, words, costume, design, and crucially, dance. They were elaborate social and political occasions, and although now they are not considered operas, their history is intimately bound up with that of early opera in France, particularly through the figure of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who worked in both genres. This spectacle was created by the King himself, Louis XIII, to celebrate the end of a blackbird hunt.

    Year claimed by Tamsin & Rob


  • 1636

    No Opera

    Possibly the last year in human history with no opera premieres. Something momentous happened in this year - the Tron family obtained permission to rebuild the destroyed Teatro San Cassiano as an opera house, which opened in 1637 as the first opera house open to the public. It set the tone, and more and more public opera houses began to open. Today a project is underway to try to rebuild the theatre again. Long live opera!

    Year claimed


  • 1637

    L'Andromeda

    by Francesco Manelli

    A seismic moment in the history of opera, as the first ever public opera was premiered, financed by the opera makers and including the composer singing one of the roles. L'Andromeda opened to the paying public at the newly rebuilt Teatro San Cassiano. This event ushered in a new way of financing operas, wresting control away from the palaces and private halls, and relying on the public for support. Help us do the same by claiming this year!

    Year claimed


  • 1638

    Luminalia

    by Nicholas Lanier

    The early history of early opera in English is bound up with the masques of the Stuart Court, and this first "opera" in English is no different. It was first performed by Queen Henrietta Maria (wife of Charles I) and her ladies in waiting.

    Year claimed by Gareth & Valerie Cole


  • 1639

    Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo

    by Francesco Cavalli

    The Wedding of Thetis and Peleus. This opera marks the emergence onto the Venetian operatic scene of a giant of early opera - Francesco Cavalli, prolific pupil of Monteverdi who would go on to compose 41 operas. This story was later set as a cantata by Gioachino Rossi in 1816. The next year, Cavalli would continue with the old operatic fable of Apollo and Dafne.

    Year claimed


  • 1640

    Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland. First performed by the company of Manelli and Ferrari, who first brought opera to Venice, this large work is now regarded as one of the earliest operatic masterworks, despite having a chequered history in terms of its authenticity. It tells the story of Ulysses returning from the Trojan War to reclaim his kingdom.

    Year claimed


  • 1641

    Didone

    by Francesco Cavalli

    First performed at the Teatro San Cassiano, the world's first public opera house, built by the "Tron Brothers" in 1637, who had a vision of building a theatre specifically designed to for music.

    Year claimed by Jonathan & Amanda


  • 1642

    L'incoronazione di Poppea

    by Claudio Monteverdi

    The Coronation of Poppea. This extraordinary opera, the last from Claudio Monteverdi, tells the story of how Poppea becomes Empress of Rome. Famed for its dark morality and sexually-charged plot, it remains a towering achievement of music drama.

    Year claimed by Anna & Ben


  • 1643

    L'Egisto

    by Francesco Cavalli

    The unstoppable Francesco Cavalli continued his relationship with the Teatro San Cassiano with this hugely successful ancient Greek tale.

    Year claimed by Rob & Fluffy


  • 1644

    Ormindo

    by Francesco Cavalli

    Cavalli again worked with the Teatro San Cassiano to present this erotic comedy. which remained unperformed after its initial run until a production at Glyndebourne in 1967. That production marked the beginning of the Cavalli revival, and Ormindo ended up opening the newly-created Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London in 2015.

    Year claimed


  • 1645

    Doriclea

    by Francesco Cavalli

    Apparently the first Venetian opera ever to feature an Amazonian warrior woman as its heroine.

    Year claimed by Julia


  • 1646

    L'Egisto

    by Francesco Cavalli

    Although this wasn't a world premiere, 1646 saw the French premiere of Cavalli's L'Egisto in Paris. This performance initiated an intense rivalry between Italian and French musical styles.

    Year claimed by Sarah, Nigel, & Joy


  • 1647

    Orfeo

    by Luigi Rossi

    This six-hour beast was first performed in Paris at the carnival in 1647, and the extravagance of the performance contributed to civil unrest. While writing it, Rossi discovered that his wife had died, and he is said to have poured his grief into the music, mirroring Orpheus, the grief-stricken operatic hero-musician.

    Year claimed by Vivienne Wood


  • 1648

    No Opera

    Although we have no records of operatic world-premieres this year, the Fronde kicked off, a series of uprisings in France, at least partly in response to the lavish lifestyle of Cardinal Mazarin, who commissioned Rossi's opera of the year before. Opera commissioners, watch out!

    Year claimed


  • 1649

    Giasone

    by Francesco Cavalli

    Giasone was despised by classical purists for its treatment of the myth of the Golden Fleece, and for mixing high and low elements into one plot. As Richard Wigmore pointed out in Gramophone, the opera came to symbolise Venice's "moral and aesthetic decadence. All of which helped make Giasone the most-performed opera in the whole of the 17th century."

    Year claimed by Andrew Mitchell


  • 1650

    Orimonte

    by Francesco Cavalli

    The continuing dominance and popularity of Cavalli and his relationship with the Teatro San Cassiano can be considered something of a high watermark for the popularity of opera.



  • 1651

    La Calisto

    by Francesco Cavalli

    Cavalli premiered two operas in 1651, both at the newly opened Teatro Sant' Apollinare, led by the impresario Giovanni Faustini, who died during the run. Commissioning operas can be a dangerous business.

    Year claimed


  • 1652

    Eritrea

    by Francesco Cavalli

    The Teatro Sant' Apollinare in Venice where this opera was premiered was a converted warehouse. Considering the fashion for operas in warehouses over the past 30 years, one can conclude that everything is cyclical. Give it up for the original hipsters! Giovanni Faustini, the librettist, was an impresario, and supplied the librettos to several of Cavalli's works. Sadly, he died at age 31, and didn't see their final two collaborations reach the stage. The opera was championed by Jane Glover in the 1980s.

    Year claimed by Sri Carmichael


  • 1653

    L'Orione

    by Francesco Cavalli

    This opera was premiered in Milan to celebrate the election of Ferdinand IV as King of the Romans.



  • 1654

    Il Ciro

    by Francesco Cavalli

    It's not clear how much of this work is actually by Cavalli - Francesco Provenzale also must claim some credit, but the order of influence is yet to be established.



  • 1655

    L'Argia

    by Antonio Cesti

    This opera was first performed at Innsbruck in Austria, where it was revived in 1996 at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music.



  • 1656

    The Siege of Rhodes

    by Matthew Locke

    Another contender for the first English opera, this piece shared a librettist, Sir William Davenant, with 1638's Luminalia, and had no fewer than five composers!

    Year claimed


  • 1657

    La Dori

    by Antonio Cesti

    Cesti premiered this tragi-comic opera at the court theatre in Innsbruck, like his 1655 L'Argia. After that it travelled extensively through Italy.



  • 1658

    The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru

    by Matthew Locke

    This piece, with a libretto by Sir William Davenant (Luminalia, 1638; The Siege of Rhodes, 1656, The History of Sir Francis Drake, 1659), was sanctioned by the Puritans to be performed publicly for two reasons: it was a musical offering, and it was anti-Spanish propaganda. It's unclear whether this is a good model for aspiring opera makers today.



  • 1659

    The History of Sir Francis Drake

    by Matthew Locke

    Locke and Davenant followed up their 1658 anti-spanish The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, with another Spain-bashing epic, encouraged by Oliver Cromwell while England was at war with Spain.

    Year claimed by Cara & Olie


  • 1660

    Celos aun del aire matan

    by Juan Hidalgo de Polanco

    Jealousy, even groundless, kills. The first Spanish Opera, with a libretto by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, one of the most distinguished writers of the Spanish Golden Age. This opera was originally performed over three days.

    Year claimed by Ranjit Saimbi


  • 1661

    Orontea

    by Antonio Cesti

    Cesti premiered his Orontea in Innsbruck in 1656, but he supervised a new production in Rome in 1661 which was hugely influential.



  • 1662

    Il Paride

    by Giovanni Andrea Bontempi

    This was the first Italian-language opera to be premiered in Dresden, with both the libretto and music by the multi-talented castrato Bonetmpi. The plot concerns Paris' abduction of Helen of Troy.



  • 1663

    Der lobwürdige Cadmus

    by Kaspar Förster

    Praiseworthy Cadmus. This lost opera was first performed in the open air in the forest near the castle of Frederiksborg in Copenhagen in September 1663, in honour of a Saxon-Danish betrothal. It was a hugely intricate work involving dances throughout, and elaborate stage machinery including a cloud-machine. Immersive opera has a long history!



  • 1664

    Scipione Affricano

    by Francesco Cavalli

    The 60-year-old Cavalli was on a high after returning to Venice from France where he spread the gospel of Italian Opera and received a diamond ring from the French king. This opera was hugely popular and was chosen to open Rome's first public opera house in 1671.



  • 1665

    La Circe

    by Pietro Andrea Ziani

    Premiered at the Neue Favorita open-air theatre at Laxenburg castle just outside Vienna, telling the story of the enchantress Circe.



  • 1666

    Pompeo Magno

    by Francesco Cavalli

    Containing a huge number of characters, this work was premiered at the Teatro San Salvatore in Venice. The work was revived in Bologna in 1692.

    Year claimed by Charlotte Tregunna


  • 1667

    Le disgrazie d'amore

    by Antonio Cesti

    The Misfortunes of Love. Cesti had gone up in the world, premiering this work at the Habsburg Court in Vienna.



  • 1668

    Il pomo d'oro

    by Antonio Cesti

    The Golden Apple. This huge opera was performed in an open-air theatre in Vienna, and was so long that it had to be performed over two days, with 24 different sets. Cesti died the year after aged 46, rumoured to be poisoned by his rivals. Opera composers beware!



  • 1669

    L'empio punito

    by Alessandro Melani

    The Wicked One Punished. The first of many operas written on the story of the womaniser Don Juan, kicking off another favourite operatic topic.



  • 1670

    I'Ippolita, Reina della Amazzoni

    by Lodovico Busca

    Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazonians. This rather obscure opera was premiered in Milan, to a libretto by Giovanni Rabbia.



  • 1671

    Pomone

    by Robert Cambert

    Considered to be the first true French opera, this pastoral tale premiered in Paris, performed by the recently established Académie d'Opéra, now known as the Paris Opera.



  • 1672

    Orfeo

    by Antonio Sartorio

    Another Orpheus retelling for the opera-hungry people of Venice, this opera is considered to a transitional work moving away from the dramaturgy of Cavalli and towards the new opera seria.



  • 1673

    Cadmus et Hermione

    by Jean-Baptiste Lully

    Originally born in Italy but a naturalised Frenchman, Lully became emblematic of the French national style. With this opera, Lully invented the tragedie lyrique, which resisted the formalism of Italian opera and mixed together a variety of musical forms in service of the drama.



  • 1674

    Alceste

    by Jean-Baptiste Lully

    Lully followed up his 1673 Cadmus with Alceste, performed at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal for the Paris Opera. The tale from Ancient Greece is preceded by an introduction in which the Nymph of the Seine longs for Louis XIV to return from battle.



  • 1675

    La divisione del mondo

    by Giovanni Legrenzi

    The Division of the World. Giovanni Legrenzi wrote 19 operas, of which this, which tells the story of the division of the world after the Olympians defeated the Titans, was the most successful.



  • 1676

    Atys

    by Jean-Baptiste Lully

    This opera became known as "the King's Opera" because of how much Louis XIV liked it, even though the Parisian public did not agree!



  • 1677

    Totila

    by Giovanni Legrenzi

    Premiered in Venice, the action takes place in the Gothic wars, with Rome under siege. The plot mixes heroic and comic elements, and Legrenzi focused on drawing four sharply differentiated characters.



  • 1678

    De triomfeerende Min

    by Carolus Hacquart

    Triumphant Love is the first opera written in Dutch, written to celebrate the Peace of Nijmegen. Sadly never performed in the composer's lifetime, it was given its premiere in 1920. Although believed lost, a reconstruction was attempted and recorded in 2012.



  • 1679

    Il Trespolo Tutore

    by Alesandro Stradella

    Trespolo the Tutor. Stradella, the composer of this opera, which is considered to be perhaps the second ever "opera buffa", a hugely influential form of Italian comic opera, met a grisly fate when he was murdered, allegedly stabbed to death by three brothers whose sister he had seduced. Composers beware!



  • 1680

    Albion and Albanius

    by Louis Grabu

    This opera with a libretto by John Dryden, although little known today, is incredibly important for the development of English Opera, acting as a precursor and inspiration for Henry Purcell.



  • 1681

    Susanna

    by Alesandro Stradella

    The aristocratic and ill-fated Stradella, who was apparently stabbed to death by the three brothers of a woman he seduced, premiered three different operas in 1681, displaying an incredibly strong work ethic.



  • 1682

    Les plaisirs de Versailles

    by Marc-Antonie Charpentier

    The Pleasures of Versailles. Charpentier was a hugely prolific composer, who composed a large amount of dramatic music. This piece was intended to be performed in the King's apartments in Versailles.



  • 1683

    Venus and Adonis

    by John Blow

    A contender for the title of first English-language opera, Venus and Adonis is radical for its through-composed nature, and acted as a major influence on Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1688).

    Year claimed by Amanda MacLeod


  • 1684

    Actéon

    by Marc-Antonie Charpentier

    A story about a hunter which was composed to be premiered in hunting season, although we don't know where or who commissioned it.



  • 1685

    Les arts florissants

    by Marc-Antonie Charpentier

    The Flourishing Arts. Commissioned for performance at the house of Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, Charpentier's patron. The text is by an unknown author.

    Year claimed by Pierre-Philippe Dechant


  • 1686

    Armide

    by Jean-Baptiste Lully

    This is arguably Lully's finest opera. The libretto is by Philippe Quinault, based on a poem by Torquato Tasso, set at the time of the crusades. The subject was chosen by King Louis XIV, and the opera was performed in the presence of his son, the Grand Dauphin.



  • 1687

    Achille et Polyxène

    by Jean-Baptiste Lully

    Lully died from a conducting injury before he could finish this opera - his pupil Pascal Collasse took over. Conductors beware!



  • 1688

    Dido and Aeneas

    by Henry Purcell

    Purcell's Dido and Aeneas may be his only full operatic work, but it is a monumental work in Baroque operatic history. Dido's famous lament "When I am laid in earth..." casts a particularly long shadow.

    Year claimed


  • 1689

    Enrico Leone

    by Agostino Steffani

    Agostino Steffani was a bishop and diplomat as well as a composer, and managed in his busy life to write 20 operas. This one was premiered in Hanover, and is based on the life of the German Prince Henry the Lion.



  • 1690

    Dioclesian

    by Henry Purcell

    It it an opera? Who knows! What's an opera anyway?



  • 1691

    King Arthur

    by Henry Purcell

    This semi-opera has a libretto by John Dryden, and was commissioned by Thomas Betterton, manager of the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden.



  • 1692

    The Fairy Queen

    by Henry Purcell

    Working again with Thomas Betterton, this semi-opera adapted the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream, and was performed at the Queen's Theatre. The score was lost and only rediscovered in the 20th century.

    Year claimed by John Savournin


  • 1693

    Médée

    by Marc-Antonie Charpentier

    A major achievement, Charpentier's large opera tells the story from Ancient Greece of the jilted sorceress who kills her own children to take revenge on Jason of the Argonauts.



  • 1694

    Céphale

    by Élisabeth Jaquet de La Guerre

    Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, aside from having an amazing name, was an important composer in her day. She wrote only one opera, which was sadly not a success. We can now look back and celebrate this achievement: the first woman to premiere an opera at the Paris Opéra.



  • 1695

    The Indian Queen

    by Henry Purcell

    Purcell's last and unfinished stage work was performed at Drury Lane. In 2013 the American director Peter Sellars directed a new realisation.

    Year claimed by Neil Pigott


  • 1696

    Brutus of Alba

    by Daniel Purcell

    This semi-opera has a libretto by John Dryden, and was commissioned by Thomas Betterton, manager of the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden.



  • 1697

    L'Europe galante

    by André Campra

    Galant Europe. The first opera-ballet.



  • 1698

    Il prigionero fortunato

    by Alessandro Scarlatti

    The Lucky Prisoner. Alessandro Scarlatti was a hugely influential and important composer of operas, and the most famous representative of the Neapolitan school. He was important in the development of the Da Capo aria, an operatic form in which you get an ABA structure. This opera was premiered in Naples.



  • 1699

    Amadis de Grèce

    by André Cardinal Destouches

    André Cardinal Destouches was a hard-worker, and managed to premiere two operas in 1699.

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