This list was created, as are most DMDB lists, by aggregating multiple best-of lists, both those focused specifically on opera and those on all albums/works regardless of genre, alongside sales, chart data, and album ratings. Here are the results:
Check out other best-of-genre/category lists here.
1. George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, & Dubose Heyward Porgy and Bess (1935)
2. Claudio Monteverdi L’Orfeo (Orpheus) (1607)
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Don Giovanni (1787)
4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) (1786)
5. Richard Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle) (1874)
6. Richard Wagner Tristan Und Isolde (1859)
7. Georges Bizet Carmen (1875)
8. Henry Purcell Dido and Aeneas (1689)
9. Claudio Monteverdi L’incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppaea) (1642)
10. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) (1791)
11. Gioacchino Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) (1816)
12. Giacomo Puccini Tosca (1900)
13. Giuseppe Verdi La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) (1853)
14. Giacomo Puccini La Bohème (The Bohemian Life) (1896)
15. George Friedrich Händel Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt) (1724)
16. Giuseppe Verdi Aida (1871)
17. Ludwig van Beethoven Fidelio (1805)
18. Giuseppe Verdi Rigoletto: La Donna È Mobile (1851)
19. Giacomo Puccini Turandot (1926)
20. Vincenzo Bellini Norma (1831)
21. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) (1781)
22. Luciano Pavarotti with Placido Domingo & Jose Carreras The Three Tenors in Concert/Mehta (live: 1990)
23. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Cosí Fan Tutte (Thus Do They All) (1790)
24. Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose) (1911)
25. Gaetano Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor (1911)
26. Alban Berg Wozzeck (1922)
27. Giacomo Puccini Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) (1904)
28. Andrea Bocelli Romanza (1997)
29. Christoph Willibald Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice) (1762)
30. Gaetano Donizetti L'Elisir d'Amore (The Elixir of Love) (1873)
31. Gioacchino Rossini Guillaume Tell (William Tell) (1829)
32. Richard Wagner Lohengrin (1850)
33. Giuseppe Verdi Otello (1887)
34. Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin (1879)
35. Giuseppi Verdi Il Trovatore (The Troubador) (1853)
36. Modest Mussorgsky Boris Godunov (1873)
37. Richard Wagner Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg (The Master-Singers of Nuremburg) (1868)
38. Giuseppe Verdi Don Carlos (1867)
39. Charles Gounod Faust (1859)
40. Richard Wagner Der Fliegende Hollander (aka “The Flying Dutchman”) (1843)
41. Claude Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)
42. Richard Wagner Tannhauser (1845)
43. Rugerro Leoncavallo Pagliacci (The Clowns) (1892)
44. Pietro Mascagni Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) (1890)
45. Giuseppe Verdi Falstaff (1893)
46. Giuseppe Verdi Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) (1842)
47. Richard Strauss Salome (1905)
48. Jules Massenet Manon (1884)
49. Amilcare Ponchilelli La Gioconda (1876)
50. Richard Strauss Elektra (1909)
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First posted 9/11/2018; last updated 10/3/2023. | 
Interesting blog, it reminds me of Giuseppe Verdi, one of his most successful opera is La Traviata, which means “the fallen woman” or “the one who goes astray” and in context it connotes the loss of sexual innocence.
ReplyDeleteI tried to write a blog about it, hope you also like it https://stenote.blogspot.com/2019/06/an-interview-with-giuseppe.html.