In “The Queen’s Throat,” David Koestenbaum writes that opera queens are distinguished by their propensity to keep lists of operas that they’ve seen. So here’s my list of operas that I’ve seen and/or heard live or recorded:
1607 L’Orfeo (Claudio Monteverdi)
1640 Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Claudio Monteverdi)
1642 L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Claudio Monteverdi)
1683 Dido and Aeneas (Henry Purcell)
1691 King Arthur (Henry Purcell)
1692 The Fairy Queen (Henry Purcell)
1711 Rinaldo (George Frideric Handel)
1724 Giulio Cesare (George Frideric Handel)
1724 Tamerlano (George Frideric Handel)
1725 Rodelinda (George Frideric Handel)
1728 The Beggar’s Opera (Johann Christoph Pepusch)
1730 Partenope (George Frideric Handel)
1731 Acis and Galatea (George Frideric Handel)
1733 La Serva Padrona (Giovanni Battista Pergolesi)
1735 Ariodante (George Frideric Handel)
1735 Alcina (George Frideric Handel)
1737 Castor et Pollux (Jean-Philippe Rameau)
1738 Serse (George Frideric Handel)
1744 Semele (George Frideric Handel)
1745 Pigmalion (Jean-Philippe Rameau)
1762 Orfeo ed Euridice (Christoph Willibald Gluck)
1781 Idomeneo (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1782 Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1786 Der Schauspieldirektor (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1786 Le Nozze di Figaro (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1787 Don Giovanni (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1790 Così Fan Tutte (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1791 La Clemenza di Tito (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1791 Die Zauberflöte (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
1792 Il Matrimonio Segreto (Domenico Cimarosa)
1805 Fidelio (Ludwig van Beethoven)
1813 L’Italiana in Algeri (Gioachino Rossini)
1816 Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Gioachino Rossini)
1816 Otello (Gioachino Rossini)
1817 La Cenerentola (Gioachino Rossini)
1821 Der Freischütz (Carl Maria von Weber)
1828 Le Comte Ory (Gioachino Rossini)
1829 Guillaume Tell (William Tell) (Gioachino Rossini)
1830 I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Vincenzo Bellini)
1831 La Sonnambula (Vincenzo Bellini)
1831 Norma (Vincenzo Bellini)
1831 Francesca di Foix (Gaetano Donizetti)
1831 La Romanziera e l’Uomo Nero (Gaetano Donizetti)
1832 L’Elisir d’Amore (Gaetano Donizetti)
1834 Maria Stuarda (Gaetano Donizetti)
1835 I Puritani (Vincenzo Bellini)
1835 Lucia di Lammermoor (Gaetano Donizetti)
1837 Zar und Zimmermann (Albert Lortzing)
1840 La Fille du Régiment (Gaetano Donizetti)
1842 Nabucco (Giuseppe Verdi)
1843 The Flying Dutchman (Richard Wagner)
1843 Don Pasquale (Gaetano Donizetti)
1845 Tannhäuser (Richard Wagner)
1846 La Damnation de Faust (The Damnation of Faust) (Hector Berlioz)
1847 Macbeth (Giuseppe Verdi)
1850 Lohengrin (Richard Wagner)
1851 Rigoletto (Giuseppe Verdi)
1853 Il Trovatore (Giuseppe Verdi)
1853 La Traviata (Giuseppe Verdi)
1858 Orphée aux Enfers (Jacques Offenbach)
1858 Les Troyens (Hector Berlioz)
1859 Faust (Charles Gounod)
1859 Un Ballo in Maschera (Giuseppe Verdi)
1862 Béatrice et Bénédict (Hector Berlioz)
1862 La Forza del Destino (Giuseppe Verdi)
1863 Les Pêcheurs de Perles (Georges Bizet)
1864 La Belle Hélène (Jacques Offenbach)
1865 Tristan und Isolde (Richard Wagner)
1866 Mignon (Ambroise Thomas)
1866 The Bartered Bride (Bedřich Smetana)
1866 Cox and Box(Arthur Sullivan)
1867 Don Carlos (Giuseppe Verdi)
1867 La Jolie Fille de Perth (Georges Bizet)
1867 Roméo et Juliette (Charles Gounod)
1868 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Richard Wagner)
1868 Hamlet (Ambroise Thomas)
1868 Mefistofele (Arrigo Boito)
1869 Les Brigands (Offenbach)
1869 Das Rheingold (Richard Wagner)
1870 Die Walküre (Richard Wagner)
1871 Aida (Giuseppe Verdi)
1874 Boris Godunov (Modest Mussorgsky)
1874 Die Fledermaus (Johann Strauss II)
1875 Carmen (Georges Bizet)
1876 Siegfried (Richard Wagner)
1876 Götterdämmerung (Richard Wagner)
1876 La Gioconda (Amilcare Ponchielli)
1877 Samson and Delilah (Camille Saint-Saëns)
1879 Eugene Onegin (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
1879 The Pirates of Penzance (Gilbert & Sullivan)
1881 Hérodiade (Jules Massenet)
1881 Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Jacques Offenbach)
1881 Simon Boccanegra (Giuseppe Verdi)
1882 Parsifal (Richard Wagner)
1882 The Snow Maiden (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)
1882 Iolanthe (Gilbert & Sullivan)
1884 Le Villi (Giacomo Puccini)
1884 Manon (Jules Massenet)
1885 The Gypsy Baron (Johann Strauss II)
1885 The Mikado (Gilbert & Sullivan)
1886 Khovanshchina (Modest Mussorgsky)
1887 Otello (Giuseppe Verdi)
1890 Cavalleria rusticana (Pietro Mascagni)
1890 The Queen of Spades (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
1890 Prince Igor (Alexander Borodin)
1892 Pagliacci (Ruggero Leoncavallo)
1892 Werther (Jules Massenet)
1893 Falstaff (Giuseppe Verdi)
1893 Hänsel und Gretel (Engelbert Humperdinck)
1893 Manon Lescaut (Giacomo Puccini)
1894 Thaïs (Jules Massenet)
1896 Andrea Chénier (Umberto Giordano)
1896 La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini)
1898 Fedora (Umberto Giordano)
1899 Cendrillon (Jules Massenet)
1900 Louise (Gustave Charpentier)
1900 Tosca (Giacomo Puccini)
1901 Rusalka (Antonín Dvořák)
1902 Adriana Lecouvreur (Francesco Cilea)
1902 Pelléas et Mélisande (Claude Debussy)
1904 Jenůfa (Leoš Janáček)
1904 Madama Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini)
1905 The Merry Widow (Franz Lehár)
1905 Salome (Richard Strauss)
1907 The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
(Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)
1909 Elektra (Richard Strauss)
1910 La Fanciulla del West (Giacomo Puccini)
1910 Treemonisha (Scott Joplin)
1911 Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss)
1911 L’Heure Espagnole (Maurice Ravel)
1912 Ariadne auf Naxos (Richard Strauss)
1914 Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) (Igor Stravinsky)
1917 La Rondine (Giacomo Puccini)
1918 Gianni Schicchi (Giacomo Puccini)
1918 Il Tabarro (Giacomo Puccini)
1918 Suor Angelica (Giacomo Puccini)
1919 Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Richard Strauss)
1924 Intermezzo (Richard Strauss)
1924 Příhody Lišky Bystroušky (The Cunning Little Vixen) (Leoš Janáček)
1925 L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Maurice Ravel)
1925 Wozzeck (Alban Berg)
1926 Věc Makropulos (The Makropulos Affair) (Leoš Janáček)
1926 Turandot (Giacomo Puccini)
1930 Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Kurt Weill)
1930 Z Mrtvého Domu (From the House of the Dead) (Leoš Janáček)
1933 Arabella (Richard Strauss)
1935 Die Schweigsame Frau (Richard Strauss)
1935 Porgy and Bess (George Gershwin)
1937 Lulu (Alban Berg)
1937 Riders to the Sea (Ralph Vaughan Williams)
1942 Capriccio (Richard Strauss)
1945 Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten)
1947 Albert Herring (Benjamin Britten)
1947 Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Francis Poulenc)
1947 The Mother of Us All (Virgil Thomson)
1951 Amahl and the Night Visitors (Gian Carlo Menotti)
1951 Billy Budd (Benjamin Britten)
1951 The Rake’s Progress (Igor Stravinsky)
1956 Candide (Leonard Bernstein)
1957 Dialogues of the Carmelites (Francis Poulenc)
1959 La Voix Humaine (Francis Poulenc)
1977 Le Grand Macabre (György Ligeti)
2006 The First Emperor (Tan Dun)