List of major opera composers

This list provides a guide to opera composers, as determined by their presence on a majority of compiled lists of significant opera composers. (See the "Lists Consulted" section for full details.) The composers run from Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first ever opera in late 16th century Italy, to John Adams, one of the leading figures in the contemporary operatic world. The brief accompanying notes offer an explanation as to why each composer has been considered major. Also included is a section about major women opera composers, compiled from the same lists. For an introduction to operatic history, see opera. The organisation of the list is by birthdate.

Major opera composers

1550–1699

Jacopo Peri as Arion in La pellegrina

1700–99

Gluck in a 1775 portrait by Joseph Duplessis.

1800–49

Giuseppe Verdi, by Giovanni Boldini, 1886 (National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome)

1850–99

Giacomo Puccini

1900–present

Female opera composers

John Singer Sargent drawing of Ethel Smyth, 1901

A number of reasons, including the high cost of production and high status of opera,[74] have been suggested to explain the relatively few women who have been composers of opera, and no woman composer met the criteria for inclusion above. However, some experts in our sample disagreed,[75] and named either or both of the women below as comparable to those already listed:

Other notable women opera composers include Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Lori Laitman, Rachel Portman, and Olga Neuwirth.

See also

References

Notes

  1. Viking Opera Guide p. 768
  2. Orrey p. 18
  3. Professor Tim Carter in Viking Opera Guide (p. 678) writes: "Monteverdi's recitative owes much to Peri ... However "Orfeo" has much broader roots. There are many references to the tradition of the Florentine intermedi: the spectacular stage effects, the mythological subject matter, the allegorical figures, the number and scoring of the instruments and the extended choruses". See also Carter, writing about the intermedi in The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (p. 4): "rich display and erudite symbolism made the intermedi an ideal projection of princely magnificence".
  4. Viking Opera Guide p. 189
  5. Orrey p. 35
  6. Orrey p. 55
  7. Viking Opera Guide p. 942
  8. Orrey p. 40
  9. Viking Opera Guide p. 343
  10. Orrey p. 59
  11. Oxford Companion to Music, p. 783
  12. Orrey p. 85
  13. Viking Opera Guide pp. 216–218
  14. Orrey p. 101
  15. JANE SCHATKIN HETTRICK, JOHN A. RICE 'Salieri, Antonio' in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
  16. Viking Opera Guide p. 210
  17. Orrey p. 139
  18. Viking Opera Guide p. 1002
  19. Viking Opera Guide pp. 37–38
  20. Orrey p. 140
  21. Oxford Illustrated History of Opera pp. 146–150
  22. Britannica p. 631 C.2
  23. A. DEAN PALMER 'Marschner, Heinrich August' in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
  24. Orrey p. 134
  25. Viking Opera Guide p. 412
  26. Orrey pp. 129–133
  27. Orrey p. 153
  28. Orrey p. 154
  29. Orrey p. 180
  30. Viking Opera Guide p. 1098.
  31. Orrey pp. 168–169
  32. Orrey pp. 137–147
  33. Britannica p. 633 C.1
  34. Orrey p. 177
  35. Viking Opera Guide p. 134
  36. Viking Opera Guide p. 929. Viking says Saint-Saëns wrote 13 operas, including his part in an unfinished work by Guiraud and two opéra comiques.
  37. Viking Opera Guide p. 253.
  38. Orrey pp. 156–157
  39. Britannica p. 637 C.2
  40. Orrey p. 182
  41. David Brown (author of the four-volume Tchaikovsky: A Biographical and Critical Study, Gollancz, 1978–91) in Viking Opera Guide, pp. 1083–1095
  42. Viking Opera Guide p. 197
  43. Viking Opera Guide p. 302
  44. Orrey p. 156
  45. Graham Dixon in Viking Opera Guide, p. 622
  46. Viking Opera Guide p. 864
  47. Britannica p. 638 C.2
  48. Viking Opera Guide p. 563
  49. Orrey p. 225
  50. Viking Opera Guide pp. 202–204
  51. Orrey p. 216
  52. Viking Opera Guide p. 617
  53. Orrey p. 213
  54. Viking Opera Guide p. 772
  55. Viking Opera Guide p. 952
  56. Viking Opera Guide p. 848
  57. Viking Opera Guide p. 958
  58. Viking Opera Guide p. 55
  59. Orrey p. 220
  60. "ALBAN BERG". Composers online. W. W. Norton & Company. Archived from the original on 2006-05-30. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  61. Britannica p. 637 C.1
  62. Viking Opera Guide p. 467
  63. Viking Opera Guide p. 348
  64. Viking Opera Guide p. 1207
  65. Viking Opera Guide p. 1102
  66. Orrey p. 232
  67. Viking Opera Guide p. 51
  68. Viking Opera Guide p. 648
  69. Orrey p. 234
  70. Viking Opera Guide p. 461
  71. Viking Opera Guide p. 243
  72. Viking Opera Guide p. 360
  73. Viking Opera Guide p. 17
  74. See, e.g. Katherine Kolb's review of Women Writing Opera: Creativity and Controversy in the Age of the French Revolution.
  75. See #Lists consulted
  76. Alexander and Savino (1997) p. 20

Sources

Lists consulted

This list was compiled by consulting ten lists of great opera composers, created by recognized authorities in the field of opera, and selecting all of the composers who appeared on at least six of these (i.e. all composers on a majority of the lists). Judith Weir appears on four of the ten lists consulted, more than any other female composer in the sample. The lists used were:

  1. "Graeme Kay's Guide to Opera, produced for the BBC".
  2. "The "Opera" Encyclopædia Britannica article".
  3. "Opera," in Columbia Encyclopedia online". Archived from the original on October 5, 2009.
  4. Composers mentioned in Nicholas Kenyon's introduction to the Viking Opera Guide (1993 edition) ISBN 0-670-81292-7.
  5. "The Standard Repertoire of Grand Opera 1607–1969", a list included in Norman Davies's Europe: a History (OUP, 1996; paperback edition Pimlico, 1997) ISBN 0-7126-6633-8.
  6. Composers mentioned in the chronology by Mary Ann Smart in The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (OUP, 1994) ISBN 0-19-816282-0.
  7. "A Bird's Eye View of the World's Chief Opera Composers" in The Oxford Companion to Music by Percy Scholes (10th edition revised by John Owen Ward, 1970). ISBN 0-19-311306-6.
  8. Composers with recordings included in The Penguin Guide to Opera on Compact Discs ed. Greenfield, March and Layton (1993 edition) ISBN 0-14-046957-5.
  9. The New Kobbe's Opera Book, ed. Lord Harewood (1997 edition) ISBN 0-399-14332-7.
  10. "Table of Contents of The Rough Guide to Opera". by Matthew Boyden. (2002 edition) ISBN 1-85828-749-9.

Note:

  • The composers included in all 10 lists cited are: Berg, Britten, Donizetti, Gluck, Handel, Monteverdi, Mozart, Puccini, Rameau, Rossini, Richard Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner.
  • The composers included in nine of the lists are: Bellini, Berlioz, Bizet, Glinka, Gounod, Lully, Massenet, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky.
  • The composers included in eight of the lists are: Adams, Debussy, Glass, Henze, Janáček, Leoncavallo, Menotti, Meyerbeer, Pergolesi, Purcell, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schoenberg, Smetana, Thomas (Ambroise), Tippett, and Weber.
  • The composers included in seven of the lists are: Auber, Beethoven, Borodin, Cavalli, Cherubini, Cimarosa, Delibes, Hindemith, Mascagni, Offenbach, Prokofiev, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Shostakovich, and Gustave Charpentier.
  • The composers included in six of the lists are: Barber, Bartók, Chabrier, Peter Maxwell Davies, Dvořák, Gay and Pepusch, Gershwin, Halévy, Peri, Pfitzner, Scarlatti, Schreker, Spontini, Stravinsky, Walton.
  • Judith Weir was included in four lists; Dame Ethel Smyth in two.
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