A Personal Canon
Favorites
A personal list. Biased towards the recent and unexpected.
01
Sweet Land
Du Yun & Raven Chacon · libretto by Aja Couchois Duncan & Douglas Kearney
Staging erasure.
2020
02
L'Amour de Loin
Kaija Saariaho · libretto by Amin Maalouf
21st century spectral technique animates a 12th century troubadour text.
2000
03
King Roger
Karol Szymanowski · libretto by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz & the composer
My favorite 20th century queer Polish opera.
1926
05
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
Anthony Davis · libretto by Thulani Davis
Visionary. Jazz-infused. Powerful.
1986
06
The Exterminating Angel
Thomas Adès · libretto by Tom Cairns & the composer
An exclamation point adaptation of the Buñuel film.
2016
07
Moses und Aron
Arnold Schoenberg · libretto by Arnold Schoenberg
“For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.”— W. B. Yeats
1957
08
Innocence
Kaija Saariaho · libretto by Sofi Oksanen (libretto), Aleksi Barrière (multilingual text)
The audience is implicated.
2021
Aix en Provence original production no longer available.
09
The Cunning Little Vixen
Leoš Janáček · libretto by Leoš Janáček, after Rudolf Těsnohlídek
A celebration of nature, all in Moravian speech-melodies and folk idiom.
1924
10
Death in Venice
Benjamin Britten · libretto by Myfanwy Piper
Britten's final work, and the best marriage of his interests and his craft.
1973
11
M. Butterfly
Huang Ruo · libretto by David Henry Hwang
Explores Orientalism. Reframes and improves the original play. Explodes the Puccini opera.
2022
No commercial recording yet — catch it live when it returns.
12
Lessons in Love and Violence
George Benjamin · libretto by Martin Crimp
A restrained, precise nervous system of sound.
2018