Fantasy Opera: time to cast your (contemporary) vote

A little more than a fortnight ago, I asked readers which neglected (unstaged as yet at Covent Garden) opera they would most like to see next season. Since the polling gadget I used did not offer a closing date, that poll is still open, for anyone who would still like to participate. However, Birtwistle's Mask of Orpheus came out in front at the outset and has maintained that lead throughout, with Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae relatively soon settling into a good second place.

I thought it might now be interesting to see which contemporary composer readers would be most keen to have compose a new opera for an imaginary new season. Some choices will doubtless be absent, but I hope that everyone will be able to find something palatable from the following list. The selection veers, though not exclusively, towards more senior composers, if only because they will often have had more of a chance to make international names for themselves; it should certainly not be inferred that I should only wish to choose from their ranks. There is also probably something of a bias towards English composers, but again I hope not excessively so. Nor is inclusion in the list a sign of favour; I have tried to include at least a few composers whose music is not really to my taste at all. Finally, the order in which they appear has no significance whatsoever...

From which composer would you most like to hear a new opera?

• Sofia Gubaidulina
• Alexander Goehr
• Bruno Mantovani
• Kaija Saariaho
• Wolfgang Rihm
• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
• Hans Werner Henze
• Salvatore Sciarrino
• Pascal Dusapin
• Brian Ferneyhough
• Pierre Boulez
• Unsuk Chin
• Elliott Carter
• Sir Harrison Birtwistle
• Steve Reich
• Luca Francesconi
• Robin Holloway
• Thomas Adès
• Péter Eötvös
• Jörg Widmann

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Fantasy Opera: time to cast your vote...

This double 'Bank Holiday Weekend', with apologies to non-British readers whom it does not affect, has brought little musical cheer. The musical choices for yesterday's Royal Wedding ranged from Last Night of the Proms-style Walton and Elgar to the truly execrable, Westminster Abbey's gift to the happy couple being an anthem by John Rutter. (Whatever would the Royal Peculiar inflict upon those it dis-liked?!) Sadly, the hope that had promised to sustain some of us through a day of fatuous 'commentary' - 'We can exclusively reveal that so-and-so is a relatively approachable person and sometimes remembers servants' birthdays', etc. - had already been denied, influenza having caused Maurizio Pollini to postpone his evening recital at the Royal Festival Hall. No Boulez second piano sonata, then, until June...
To lift the Boulezian spirits, then, however vain the hopes, another coda to the Fantasy Opera season (which opened here): a non-partisan, first-past-the-post readers' poll. The following twenty operas present but a meagre selection, of course, and the choice is shamelessly a reflection of a few works that would interest me, but there is only one work per composer and I hope that there will be something for everyone. For what it is worth, I should be very happy with any of them. So far as I am aware, the Royal Opera has never staged any of these works. And if it has, so be it: our fantasy house can do so again. Which would you select to feature next season? (And feel free to substitute your own house, real or imaginary, for Covent Garden, should that make more sense.) Readers are kindly invited to cast their votes; otherwise my musical misery will only continue...

(P.S. Apologies for the misspelled 'Sonntag' on the results display; I cannot work out how that happened, since it reads correctly on the present page. At any rate, I have no idea how to alter it. Sirius may or may not prove forgiving...)

Which opera would you choose to stage?

• Stockhausen, Sonntag aus Licht
• Rameau, Hippolyte et Aricie
• Mozart, Lucio Silla
• Busoni, Doktor Faust
• Janáček, From the House of the Dead
• Birtwistle, The Mask of Orpheus
• Wagner, Das Liebesverbot
• Dallapiccola, Ulisse
• Goehr, Arden Must Die
• Hindemith, Cardillac
• Tchaikovsky, The Maid of Orleans
• Messiaen, Saint François d'Assise
• Schreker, Die Gezeichneten
• Lachenmann, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern
• Gluck, Iphigénie en Aulide
• Henze, König Hirsch
• Cavalli, L'Ormindo
• Schubert, Alfonso und Estrella
• Haydn, Armida
• Nono, Intolleranza 1960
• Strauss, Die Liebe der Danae

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Fantasy Opera: ninth, extra season

I should probably have quit whilst I was (relatively) ahead, and do not doubt that nothing could top bowing out with Parsifal and Europeras. However, I am told that one should never say never again, so, at the risk of seeming like one of those people who insist and insist again, 'just one more time,' here goes...:

Stockhausen, Dienstag
Mozart, Don Giovanni
Monteverdi-Berio, Orfeo
Pfitzner, Palestrina
Gluck, Iphigénie en Aulide
Janáček, Jenůfa
JC Bach, Amadis des Gaule
Rimsky-Korsakov, Tales of Tsar Saltan
Rameau, Zéphire, and Strauss, Friedenstag
Purcell, The Fairy Queen
Dvořák, Rusalka
Weill, Der Silbersee
Enescu, Œdipe
Handel, Theodora
Birtwistle, Yan Tan Tethera
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde

Fantasy Opera: finale

All good things must come to an end. Or, as Erda has it, 'Alles was ist, endet.' It has been tremendous fun to put together these seasons, and I could happily have gone on for longer, but the way in which this eighth selection concluded suggested more than a mere end of season. What strikes me is how many great works, some of which I love very dearly, have yet to be programmed, especially when it comes to Mozart and Wagner, but from many others too, from Purcell to Birtwistle, from Gluck to Goehr. As I noted at the beginning, I have also ignored entirely newly commissioned works. Perhaps that would be an idea for a subsequent series. Here, at any rate, is my final selection of sixteen productions:

Cavalieri, Rappresentazione di anima et di corpo
Lachenmann, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern
Rameau, Platée
Berg, Lulu
Berio, Un re in ascolto
Gluck, Alceste
Strauss, Die Frau ohne Schatten
Mozart, Der Schauspieldirektor, Purcell, The Indian Queen, and Mozart, Zaide
Berlioz, Béatrice et Bénédict
Haydn, La fedeltà premiata
Korngold, Die tote Stadt
Handel, Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Henze, The Bassarids
Monteverdi, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Il ballo delle ingrate, and Stravinsky, Œdipus Rex
Wagner, Parsifal
Cage, Europeras I and II

Fantasy Opera: seventh season

Schoenberg, Moses und Aron
Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro
Charpentier, David et Jonathas
Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier
Handel, Semele
Krenek, Karl V
Prokofiev, The Love for Three Oranges
Weber, Der Freischütz
Cavalli, Ercole armante
Rossini, Il viaggio a Reims
Ligeti, Le grand macabre
Zemlinsky, Der König Kandaules
Schubert, Fierrabras
Busoni, Die Brautwahl
Offenbach, Orphée aux enfers
Nono, Al gran sole carico d’amore

Fantasy Opera: sixth season

Dukas, Ariane et Barbe-bleue and Bartók, Bluebeard’s Castle
Monteverdi, L’Orfeo
Goehr, Arianna
Weber, Oberon
Wagner, Die Feen
Mozart, Idomeneo
Puccini, Turandot
Hindemith, Mathis der Maler
Holloway, Clarissa
Falla, La vida breve, and Ravel, L’heure espagnole
Rameau, Castor et Pollux
Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots
Prokofiev, The Gambler
Strauss, Die Liebe der Danae
Handel, Alcina
Bizet, Carmen