Photo Credits: Sabine Toepffer

Almost every year, a multitude of operas are premiered, some of which never really get publicly highlighted as they should due to certain operas taking the limelight, funds, and critical attention. Thus, in this three-month series entitled, Opera History Flashbacks, we’ll be taking a look at three historically important years and the operas that were premiered during those years. If you wish to follow along, click here and find the right date.

In part one, we’ll be taking a look at 1991, a year in history made famous around the world as the year the USSR dissolved. Part two will be dedicated to 1789, the year the French Revolution and the dissolution of the monarchical ‘Ancien régime.’ The final part will be dedicated to the infamous year, 2019, the start of the COVID 19 pandemic which uprooted cultural patterns across the board, with everything from performances to governance changing as a result. While there are many years to choose from, we’ll focus only on these three. 

In 1991, many high-profile operas given their premieres. However, chief among them were John Adams’ controversial work, ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ and John Corigliano’s ‘The Ghosts of Versailles,’ an unofficial continuation of the Beaumarchais trilogy (i.e., think Rossini and Mozart).

 Other major works like Phillip Glass’ chamber opera, ‘Orphée,’ John Cage’s ‘Europera V,’ Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ‘Dienstag aus Licht,’ and Krzysztof Penderecki’s topical work, ‘Ubu Rex,’ were all premiered that year as well. What makes this year notable, however, was the premiere of the, now revived, work, ‘Frida,’ by Robert Xavier Rodriguez. Additionally, Danial Catan’s Spanish opera, ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter,’ marked the first time a Mexican opera composer had a work premiered by a high-level opera house within the United States. 

Ground-breaking works were a theme of the year, as Meredith Monk’s ‘Atlas,’ documenting the life of opera singer and Eastern philosophical champion Alexandra David-Néel, and Karine Saporta’s non-opera, ‘Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs,’ challenged what an opera was and could be. Amidst the hype of Cage and Glass were the dominance of new voices arose. Washington Opera featured Chinese composer Jin Xiang’s opera, ‘Savage Land,’ as part of their 1991-92 season, whilst the Mariinsky Theatre premiered a new staging of Prokofiev’s ‘The Love for Three Oranges’ under Valery Gergiev in October. 

While outside of new operas, television saw the release of new series bringing opera singers into the home like never before, on stage, Gian Carlo Menotti had his opera, ‘The Medium,’ premiered on-stage for the first time in accordance with his 81st anniversary at the Miller Theatre in New York, NY. In Long Beach, FL, Mozart’s greatly overlooked teen opera, Lucio Silla, was given its US premiere by Long Beach Opera to generally good reviews.

That’s just scratching the surface it seems as there’s so much more. In our next post, we’ll be taking a look at the operas premiered in 1789, a whole two decades ahead, a time dominated by the world of late Classicism.

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