Ever wonder what was the first production to be classified an opera? Or who it was by? What was Mozart’s first opera and when was Wagner’s first opera performed? Check out the table below for a timeline of some of the major landmarks in the history of the artform.
If viewing this on a tablet or phone the table might not display at its best. Click here to access a colour PDF of the timeline. You can also download the PDF by clicking on the image below the table.
Period | Year | Opera | Composer | Notes |
Baroque | 1597 | Dafne | Jacopo Peri | A pastoral drama featuring a new style of sung dialogue, more expressive than speech but less melodious than song |
| 1600 | Euridice | Jacopo Peri | The first opera to survive in tact | |
| 1607 | Orfeo | Claudio Monteverdi | The earliest opera still performed today | |
| 1639 | Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (The Return of Ulysses) | Claudio Monteverdi | ||
| 1643 | L’incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea) | Claudio Monteverdi | ||
| 1647 | Ofeo | Luigi Rossi | ||
| 1649 | Giasone | Francesco Cavalli | ||
| 1651 | La Calisto | Francesco Cavalli | ||
| 1674 | Alceste | Jean-Baptiste Lully | ||
| 1676 | Atys | Jean-Baptiste Lully | ||
| 1683 | Venus and Adonis | John Blow | Considered the first English opera | |
| 1686 | Armide | Jean-Baptiste Lully | ||
| 1689 | Dido and Aeneas | Henry Purcell | ||
| 1700 | L’Eraclea | Alessandro Scarlatti | ||
| 1710 | Agrippina | George Frederick Handel | ||
| 1711 | Rinaldo | George Frederick Handel | ||
| 1721 | Griselda | Alesandro Scarlatti | ||
| 1724 | Giulio Cesere | George Frederick Handel | ||
| 1728 | The Beggar’s Opera | Johann Christoph Pepusch | ||
| 1731 | Acis and Galatea | George Frederick Handel | ||
| 1733 | La serva padrona (The Servant Turned Mistress) | Giovanni Battista Pergolesi | ||
| 1737 | Castor and Pollux | Jean-Philippe Rameau | ||
| 1744 | Semele | George Frederick Handel | ||
| 1745 | Platee | Jean-Philippe Rameau | ||
Classical | 1760 | La buona figliuola (The Good-natured Girl) | Niccolò Piccinni | |
| 1762 | Orfeo ed Euridice | Christoph Willibald Gluck | ||
| 1768 | Bastien und Bastienne | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Mozart’s first opera | |
| 1777 | Il mondo della luna (The World on the Moon) | Joseph Haydn | ||
| 1779 | Iphigénie en Tauride | Christoph Willibald Gluck | ||
| 1781 | Idomeneo | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Mozart’s first mature opera | |
| 1782 | Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | The first of Mozart’s comic masterpieces | |
| 1782 | Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) | Giovanni Paisiello | Not to be confused with Rossini’s more well-known opera of the same name | |
| 1786 | Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | ||
| 1787 | Don Giovanni | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | ||
| 1790 | Così fan tutte (Women Are Like That) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | ||
| 1791 | Die zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | ||
| 1797 | Médée | Luigi Cherubini | ||
| 1805 | Fidelio | Ludwig van Beethoven | Beethoven’s only opera | |
| 1812 | La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder) | Gioachino Rossini | ||
| 1816 | Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) | Gioachino Rossini | ||
| 1816 | Otello | Gioachino Rossini | ||
| Romantic 1800-1914 | 1821 | Der Freischütz (The Marksman) | Carl Maria von Weber | The first great German Romantic opera |
| 1823 | Semiramide | Gioachino Rossini | ||
| 1826 | Oberon | Carl Maria von Weber | ||
| 1829 | Guillaume Tell | Gioachino Rossini | ||
| 1830 | Anna Bolena | Gaetano Donizetti | ||
| 1831 | Norma | Vincenzo Bellini | ||
| 1832 | L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) | Gaetano Donizetti | ||
| 1835 | Lucia di Lammermoor | Gaetano Donizetti | ||
| 1836 | A Life for the Tsar | Mikhail Glinka | The first great Russian opera | |
| 1836 | Les Huguenots | Giacomo Meyerbeer | One of the most famous French grand operas | |
| 1842 | Nabucco | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1843 | Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) | Richard Wagner | ||
| 1851 | Rigoletto | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1853 | Il trovatore (The Troubadour) | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1853 | La traviata (The Fallen Woman) | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1858 | Les Troyens | Hector Berlioz | ||
| 1859 | Faust | Charles Gounod | ||
| 1859 | Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1862 | La forza del destino (The Power of Destiny) | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1865 | Tristan und Isolde | Richard Wagner | ||
| 1868 | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nurenberg) | Richard Wagner | ||
| 1869 | Das Rheingold | Richard Wagner | The first of Wagner’s four The Ring of the Nibelungen series | |
| 1870 | Die Walküre | Richard Wagner | ||
| 1871 | Aida | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1874 | Boris Godunov | Modest Mussorgsky | ||
| 1874 | Die Fledermaus (The Bat) | Johann Strauss II | ||
| 1875 | Carmen | Georges Bizet | ||
| 1876 | Siegfried | Richard Wagner | ||
| 1876 | Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) | Richard Wagner | ||
| 1879 | Eugene Onegin | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | ||
| 1882 | Parsifal | Richard Wagner | Wagner’s final opera | |
| 1884 | Manon | Jules Massenet | ||
| 1887 | Otello | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1890 | Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) | Pietro Mascagni | Often performed as a double bill with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci | |
| 1890 | Prince Igor | Alexander Borodin | Borodin died in 1887, leaving the opera unfinished | |
| 1892 | Iolanta | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | ||
| 1892 | Pagliacci (Clowns) | Ruggero Leoncavallo | Often performed as a double bill with Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana | |
| 1892 | Werther | Jules Massenet | ||
| 1893 | Falstaff | Giuseppe Verdi | ||
| 1893 | Hänsel und Gretel | Engelbert Humperdinck | ||
| 1893 | Manon Lescaut | Giacomo Puccini | ||
| 1896 | La bohème (The Bohemians) | Giacomo Puccini | ||
| 1900 | Tosca | Giacomo Puccini | ||
| 20th century 1900-2000 | 1901 | Rusalka | Antonín Dvořák | |
| 1902 | Pelléas et Mélisande | Claude Debussy | ||
| 1904 | Madama Butterfly | Giacomo Puccini | ||
| 1904 | Jenůfa (Her Stepdaughter) | Leoš Janáček | ||
| 1905 | Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) | Franz Lehár | ||
| 1905 | Salome | Richard Strauss | ||
| 1907 | A Village Romeo and Juliet | Frederick Delius | ||
| 1909 | Elektra | Richard Strauss | ||
| 1910 | La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) | Giacomo Puccini | ||
| 1910 | Treemonisha | Scott Joplin | A ragtime opera not staged until 1972 | |
| 1911 | Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose) | Richard Strauss | ||
| 1912 | Ariadne auf Naxos | Richard Strauss | ||
| 1918 | Bluebeard’s Castle | Béla Bartók | ||
| 1925 | Wozzeck | Alban Berg | ||
| 1926 | Turandot | Giacomo Puccini | Left unfinished at his death in 1924 | |
| 1928 | The Threepenny Opera | Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill | ||
| 1934 | Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District | Dmitry Shostakovich | ||
| 1935 | Porgy and Bess | George Gershwin | ||
| 1941 | Paul Bunyan | Benjamin Britten | Britten’s first foray into opera | |
| 1942 | Capriccio (Caprice) | Richard Strauss | His final opera | |
| 1945 | Peter Grimes | Benjamin Britten | ||
| 1945 | War and Peace | Sergei Prokofiev | ||
| 1946 | The Rape of Lucretia | Benjamin Britten | ||
| 1951 | The Pilgrim’s Progress | Ralph Vaughan Williams | ||
| 1951 | The Rake’s Progress | Igor Stravinsky | ||
| 1953 | Gloriana | Benjamin Britten | ||
| 1954 | The Turn of the Screw | Benjamin Britten | ||
| 1954 | Troilus and Cressida | William Walton | ||
| 1958 | Vanessa | Samuel Barber | ||
| 1960 | A Midsummer Night’s Dream | Benjamin Britten | ||
| 1962 | King Priam | Michael Tippett | ||
| 1966 | Antony and Cleopatra | Samuel Barber | ||
| 1970 | The Knot Garden | Michael Tippett | ||
| 1972 | Taverner | Peter Maxwell Davies | ||
| 1973 | Death in Venice | Benjamin Britten | Britten’s final opera, it was performed three years before his death | |
| 1978 | Le Grand Macabre | György Ligeti | ||
| 1983 | Saint François d’Assise | Olivier Messiaen | ||
| 1984 | Un re in ascolto (A King Listens) | Luciano Berio | ||
| 1984 | Akhnaten | Philip Glass | ||
| 1986 | The Mask of Orpheus | Harrison Birtwistle | ||
| 1987 | A Night at the Chinese Opera | Judith Weir | ||
| 1987 | Nixon in China | John Adams | ||
| 1995 | A Streetcar Named Desire | André Previn |
Click on the image below to access a downloadable PDF of this timeline.
This is such a fantastic resource, thank you! I was planning to create something like this myself, but you have done it all already. Can I ask what software you used to create the pdf chart?
Great fun and educational!
Hi there. Thanks for your comment. I used InDesign to create the timeline