And just making the list.. 100 - Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde

Some of the most influential music ever written, unfortunately that doesn't make it any more interesting... Beside that the piece is almost unsingable... Let's remember that it is a killer show, two conductors have died while conducting Act 2 and singing Tristan killed its first lead tenor... 

Here is Marilyn Richardson and William Johns for the Australian Opera in 1990. 

99 - Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio

It contains some glorious music, but it isn't well shaped with a jarring mix of bucolic romance and passionate heroism and has some clunky spoken dialogue... 

Here is the English National Opera production by Calixto Bieito starring Australian star tenor Stuart Skelton and Emma Bell. 

98 - Jules Massenet's Werther

The music is gorgeous, but it isn't exactly a fun night out... it is probably the most depressing opera in the repertoire... 

Here are Jonas Kaufmann and Sophie Koch in the recent new production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. 

97 - Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz

This gothic opera contains some wonderful chromatic music, particularly in the famous Wolf Glen scene, as the forces of evil oversee the casting of the magic bullets... Today it is unfortunately rarely seen outside the German speaking world and it can be difficult to produce with its anachronistic dialogue and old fashioned morality... 

Here is an illustration of one of the first productions around the time of the opera's premiere in 1821... 

96 - Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser

A seminal work from Wagner that contains some glorious music... Set between the erotic realm (well as erotic as you could be in the mid-19th century) of Venusburg and the medieval formality of Wartburg, there is a ballet for cavorting nymphs and a medieval song contest amongst other things... Some really splendid music, such as "Dich, tuere Halle" and the Pilgrim's Chorus but the opera never reaches the heights of Wagner's later creations... 

Here is the Metropolitan Opera's 2015 revival starring Johan Botha and Eva-Maria Westbroek... 

95 - Giacomo Puccini's La boheme.

Yes, it is the most popular opera in the world and has been since the 1960's... But popular doesn't mean great... It has unquestionably beautiful music, but it is also cloyingly sweet and sentimental and inoffensive. The tart with the heart dies of TB, while the lad learns an important life lesson about responsibility... The characters are derivative ciphers that really are "everybodies"... 

Here is the ever gorgeous Cheryl Barker and David Hobson in Baz Luhrmann's legendary Australian Opera production of 1993...

94 - Alban Berg's Wozzeck

A work of searing intensity set in a bleak ugly world. A touchstone of 20th Century music, it's jarring modernism and dissonance can be brutal and unforgiving. But as well as being musically fascinating it gives singing actors some real characters to work with...

Here is Simon Keenleyside braving the recent Royal Opera Covent Garden production of 2013... "Braving" in that after singing the demanding title role, the singer is submerged in a tank of bloody water for a sizeable section of the last act, after his suicide... 

93 - Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo

The oldest opera on this list and the oldest opera in the repertoire, It is often referred to as the first ever opera though this is a misnomer. First performed in 1607, L'Orfeo shows us what opera was like at the very beginning. It contains much beautiful music, enough to soothe the savage souls of Hades... The singing can sound strange and exotic to our modern ears, but without this work we would not have the art form we have today. 

Here is the full video of Ponnelle and Harnoncourt's landmark Zurich production from 1978 that brought L'Orfeo back to the repertoire after years of neglect. 

92 - Charles Gounod's Romeo et Juliette

Filled with beautiful arias and stirring ensembles, Gounod's opera is a showcase for beautiful coloratura singing, particular the soprano showpiece "Je veux vivre" and the four ravishing love duets... 

Here is the Balcony Scene from Stuart Maunder's 2005 production for Opera Australia that starred the gorgeous Emma Matthews and the sensational Eric Cutler. 

91 - Leoš Janáček's Káťa Kabanová

A powerful dramatic work of infidelity and suicide in rural 19th century Russia... The sound world of Janacek's operas is very different of those of Italian, German, French and Russian opera. 

His is a distinct Czech voice. The speech patterns and folk music of his native Moravia were a constant inspiration for his operas. 

Here is Karita Mattila in Robert Carsen's production for the Teatro Real, Madrid in 2008.

90 - Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia

A work for 8 soloists and an orchestra of 12 that is still packs a punch!! A shattering exploration of the culture of violence and the tragedy that comes as a result. The music is stunning and ranges from intensely beautiful such as Tarquinius's aria "Within this frail crucible of light" to the startling "Ride to Rome". Britten's opera is full cryptic messages and mysteries such as a Christian framing device used to tell the pagan story. It is indeed a rarely performed masterpiece.

Here is the 2015 Glyndebourne production starring hunky baritone Duncan Rock and mezzo Christine Rice directed by Fiona Shaw...

89 - Phillip Glass's Akhnaten

A breathtaking minimalist work based on the life of Akhnaten first performed in 1983. The libretto based on excerpts of ancient texts, including the Hebrew Bible and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, is sung in the original languages, including Ancient Egyptian, Akkadian and Hebrew. Using Glass's minimalist music of layered repeated notes, a large percussion section and no violins, the score has a magical, ethereal quality... Performances are still rare and a full professional production is not yet available on DVD but the work is gradually finding a place in the repertoire. 

Here is Phelim McDermott's gorgeous production for the English National Opera starring countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo from March this year. 

88 - Thomas Ades's The Tempest

Based on Shakespeare's play, this strikingly modern opera, features a demanding score which pushes the limits of the singers. Particularly the role of the sprite Ariel, written for a coloratura soprano, is fiendishly stratospheric... 

Here is a clip of Cyndia Sieden as Ariel and Simon Keenlyside as Prospero in the world premiere production at the Royal Covent Garden in 2004 

87 - Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth

One of his early masterpieces, this chilling adaption of Shakespeare's play features one of Verdi's darkest female roles, Lady Macbeth. Renowned for its difficulty, the role ranges across coloratura, pianissimo and some fearsome fortissimo singing across a wide span of the soprano voice. 

Here is the Lady's entrance sung by one of the greatest dramatic sopranos of all time... the awesome Birgit Nilsson!!! 

86 - Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula

Yes it is a plot about sleepwalking and it is a semiseria ("semi-serious"), a style that most audiences today find difficult to engage with, but the music contains some of the most beautiful coloratura arias composed in the bel canto period. With a cast who can master the fioritura and every other difficult vocal technique Bellini includes including very long exposed lines, it is a breath taking vocal extravaganza!! Set in a cute rustic Swiss village, the music is gorgeous!!

Here is the sublime Australian soprano Emma Matthews sailing through the stunning final aria Ah non giunge!! from the Opera Australia production of 2010.

85 - Leoš Janáček's Příhody lišky Bystroušky (The Cunning Little Vixen)

This bittersweet comedy of the adventures of a fox through forest and farm, dodging hunters, slaughtering chickens and chatting with the animals, debuted in 1924. It must be one of the only operas to be based on a newspaper comic strip. Janacek explores the speech rhythm of the Moravian dialect against modernist music that is not brash and is often very beautiful. Staged by a clever director and a great singing cast, this can be a delight. But don't be fooled, the ending is not happy... As Janacek ably shows, the circle of life most go on.

Here is the Opera National de Paris production from 2008 directed by Andre Engel and starring Elena Tsallagova... The vixen is caught by the farmer and is here inciting the chickens to revolt and overthrow him, just before she slaughters them.

84 - Gioachino Rossini's Le Comte Ory

A rollicking French farce set in the Middle Ages... The men are away on crusade whilst the women wait for their return. That legendary seducer, Count Ory, tries several different ways to seduce the lady of the castle, even disguising him and his men as nuns on the run from lecherous bandits... The music bubbles and fizzes along as only a Rossini comedy can. High flying coloratura arias and duets of extreme virtuosity are littered in the score. 

The highlight is the trio for the soprano Countess Adele, tenor Count Ory and mezzo en transvesti Isolier towards the end of Act 2. Count Ory, sneaks into Countess Adele's room disguised as a nun to seduce her. His page, Isolier, played by a mezzo soprano dressed as a young man, sneaks into Adele's room to stop the Count. The tenor dressed as a nun, the mezzo playing a boy and the soprano end up together in a bed in the darkness and hilarity ensues... 

Here is that trio from the Metropolitan Opera's production of 2011, starring Juan Diego Florez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau... This is just so much fun!

83 - Dimitri Shostakovich's Леди Макбет Мценского уезда (Lady Macbeth of Mtensk)

It is shocking opera of abuse and violence with some incredible music... Rape, murder, jealousy and suicide... Unfortunately it was Shostakovich's last work for the stage. After a stunning success in 1934 and much public acclaim, two years later the opera was denounced as "coarse, primitive and vulgar" in Pravda in an article attributed to Stalin himself. He had attended a performance two days before.

The work was banned in Russia and was not seen until Shostakovich edited the score for a revival in 1962. The rework was so different, the title was changed to "Katerina Izmailova". Today the original has become a regular part of the operatic repertoire.

Here is the Opera Australia revival of Francesca Zambello's production from 2009 starring the fabulous Susan Bullock!!

82 - George Frideric Handel's Rinaldo

A spectacular opera which was the first Italian opera written for the London stage. It premiered in 1711 and caused huge excitement. Apart from three lead castrati roles, it features two breathtaking soprano roles. Set during the siege of Jerusalem, the libretto features a magic hermit, a dark sorceress, a virtuous princess, magical transformations, seduction, two kidnappings and an epic battle on a magical mountain. 

The plot is too elaborate to explain here... Musical highlights include the sublime soprano aria Lascia ch'io pianga for Almirena and a breathtaking cabaletta with wild harpsichord accompaniment for Armida, the sorceress, at the end of Act 2. This was the work that started the opera craze in London. 

Here in Opera Australia's sublime production of 1999 is the gorgeous Yvonne Kenny as Armida, the ravishing Emma Matthews as Almirena and the spectacular Australian countertenor Graham Pushee as Rinaldo. 

81 - Karol Szymanowski's Król Roger (King Roger)

A real rarity but unfairly so as this a stunning opera with some sublime music. The sensual and ecclesiastical combine in the heady incense and heat of 12th century Palermo. A King is tempted by a shepherd but decides in the bright light of dawn a new path needs to be followed. Told in three short acts, each very distinct and different in tone, it has a very different sound from other operas. 

And it is the only full opera in Polish to be anywhere close to the standard repertoire. Thanks to Mariusz Kwiecien, the superstar Polish baritone, who has brought this masterpiece out of obscurity and into the biggest opera houses in the world sparking a mini revival of the work. Recent productions in Paris, London and Baden Baden have brought this opera to the fore as never before. 

Here is the 2015 Royal Opera Convent Garden production by Kaspar Holten reputed to be heading to Australia in the near future. 

80 - Paul Hindemith's Cardillac

Without doubt the rarest opera on my list. An opera so rare few except the most devoted aficionados will have heard of it. It is a masterpiece none the less. Premiered in 1926, the work is a cornerstone of German expressionism. A murderer is on the loose in Paris and the rich and famous are dying.

What no one realises is that the jeweller, Cardillac, is obsessed with his own creations and he is killing off anyone who dares to buy his jewels so he can steal them back. Murder begets murder and the city is gripped by hysteria. A dark sardonic work, it is a jarring modernist score that features a tour-de-force role for the baritone who plays the murderous jeweller.

Here is the recent Wiener Staatsoper production of 2010. I look forward to this masterwork finding it's proper place in the operatic repertoire sometime in the future.

79 - Giacomo Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots

An epic opera that requires 7 star singers who can handle all the showy tricks in Meyerbeer's score. Set around the St. Valentine's Day massacre in Paris in 1572... It is a grand opera of love, jealousy, religion, fundamentalism and violence.

The music is undoubtedly beautiful but Meyerbeer's grand over the top style can be a bit much for some today. From its debut in 1836 through to the late 19th Century, Les Huguenots was one of the most popular operas in the world. Today it is a relative rarity.

The amazing Dame Joan Sutherland choose the opera for her farewell performance at the Australian Opera in 1990  and here she is as Queen Marguerite de Valois.

78 - Luigi Cherubini's Médée

This is an operatic tour-de-force for a dramatic soprano who really has a fire inside her. Revived for her in 1953, the opera today is most closely identified with Maria Callas. She kept it in her repertoire up until the 1960's and for many opera fans Maria Callas will always be the one and only Medea. Premiered in 1797, the opera was not warmly received but has gradually found a place in the outer repertoire.

Interestingly the opera was written in French as an opera comique with spoken dialogue between the arias and ensembles. For performances in Vienna in 1802, music not by Cherubini was added to turn the spoken dialogue into recitative and the French text was translated into Italian.

It is this Italian version that Callas made famous, she never sang the role in the original French. Other famous exponents of the role include Elizabeth Connell, Montserrat Caballé, Leyla Gencer, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Magda Olivero and Leonie Rysanek.

The opera is based on Sophocles' tragedy in which Jason has tired of the sorceress Medea and is taking a new wife. Medea loses control, murders her children and sets fire to the temple. She also murders her rival with a poisoned dress she gives her as a wedding present. Here is La Divina, Maria Callas as Medea at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

77 - Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment)

An abandoned girl found on a battlefield is raised by a regiment of soldiers. Marie does the cooking and the cleaning and has become a real tom boy. When it is discovered that she is actually the niece of a local Marquise she is sent off to become a lady... Much hilarity ensues and in the end love wins the day. Donizetti wrote this sparking comedy early in his stay in Paris and it premiered in 1840.

Written in French with spoken dialogue, it contains some breathtaking bel canto arias and duets particularly for the two leads, soprano Marie and tenor Tonio, Marie's crush... Today the best known aria is "Ah! mes amis", a fearsome tenor aria with 9 high c's... It was the role of Tonio that earned Pavarotti the title of the "King of the high c's"... For a true coloratura comedienne and a tenor who has all the high notes required, this is a delightfully fun, musically exciting night in the theatre.

Here is Natalie Dessay as Marie and Dawn French as Duchesse du Krankenthorp at the Royal Opera in 2006.

76 - Alexandr Borodin's Князь Игорь (Prince Igor)

A real labour of love, Borodin worked on the opera over a twenty year period and died leaving it incomplete in 1887. Borodin was not a professional composer and wrote the opera in his holidays from his real job, Professor of Chemistry for the Imperial Academy. Fellow composers Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov and Alexandr Glazunov sewed the pieces together into a whole which premiered at the Mariinsky in 1890. The work is an epic of medieval pageantry and contains some glorious music, particularly the well known Polovtsian Dances.

The Polovtsian Dances is well known today thanks to Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes which brought the work to Paris in the early 20th century. The Dances were also the basis, along with several other excerpts from the opera, for the music of the Broadway musical Kismet. The opera itself tells its story in fragmented scenes and it is difficult today to know what structure Borodin intended for the opera. Regardless of the edition of the score chosen it contains some spectacular music, although it is unfortunately rarely seen outside Russia today.

Here is the Polovtsian Dances from the Bolshoi Opera production of 2013.

75 - Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West)

Premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1910, it is Puccini's most radical and modern opera, written without arias in the traditional style. But it is one of the most influential of all Puccini's operas. Without this opera the film scores of countless Westerns would not exist. This opera created the sound of the western film genre.

Minnie is a saloon girl in a gold rush town, who falls in love with the bandit, Dick Johnson, in disguise. There is a dramatic tense poker game as blood drips from the ceiling and a final happy ending. But the opera is also imbued with a feeling of isolation, loneliness and melancholy. Much of the music is evocative and glorious.

The opera was the subject of a famous court case when Puccini's estate sued Andrew Lloyd Webber for plagiarism. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum, but anyone who knows Phantom will recognise several of Puccini's tunes. Puccini's score provided much inspiration for how the American landscape became represented in music throughout the 20th Century.

While still the poor cousin of the popular Puccini works, it is a fabulous piece with much to love. Performances while infrequent aren't rare and the piece provides some marvellous roles.

Here is the entire opera from 2013 from the Wiener Staatsoper starring the stunning Jonas Kaufmann as Dick Johnson and the fabulous Nina Stemme as Minnie.

74 - Leoš Janáček's Věc Makropulos (The Makropulos Case)

If ever there was a diva role, the role of Emilia Marty has to be one of the best. The literally immortal diva has lived for centuries, going through new names and men every couple of decades. Janacek's music is modernist and sharp but always gorgeous. 

The ending is sublime. As Emilia decides to die rather than live on forever, she sings of transformation in soaring beautiful lines. The character covers everything from haughty diva to vulnerable victim. The opera plumbs the question of whether living forever really is a wish you want fulfilled... 

Here is the sublime Cheryl Barker as Emilia Marty in the Opera National du Rhin, Strasbourg production from 2011.

73 - Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos

An opera of that is hard to pin down. At once parody, homage, and at the other a mystical ephemeral creation. Few opera plots are as complex as Ariadne. In the house of the richest man in Vienna, a celebration is underway and a young composer has composed an opera for the occasion. 

But the rich man has also hired a troop of players to provide bawdy comedic songs. Much to the young composer's horror, the host has decided to run the comedy after the opera. Of course the start of the opera is delayed and the rich man decides that in order to finish in time for the planned fireworks, the tragic opera and the bawdy comedy should be performed simultaneously on the same stage. 

We then see the opera performed. Poor Ariadne has been abandoned on Naxos and prays for death. The bawdy comedians try to help but in the end she is rescued by Bacchus and the sail off together. The comedians continue to pop in and out throughout the opera, leading to much confusion and hilarity. If the story is complex and multilayered, the music is even more so. Echoes of 17th Century dance music mix with Wagnerian textures... Comic lightness and the heaviness of tragic opera. Of course much of this has it tongue firmly in its cheek. 

The opera was originally composed by Strauss as a divertissement to sit in a production of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. It was later expanded into a full evening piece in its own right and premiered in 1916. Today the piece has it place in the repertoire assured as it contains glorious music of a dramatic Wagnerian nature and fiendish coloratura singing for Zerbinetta, the hussy that leads the comedians. The Composer has to be one of the best mezzo soprano roles composed in the 20th Century. 

Here is Emily Magee as Ariadne and Jonas Kaufmann as Bacchus at the Salzburg Festival in 2012 in a rare staging of the original play/opera hybrid. Any excuse to post a picture of a man in a leopard print suit... 

72 - Georges Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearlfishers)

The lesser known of Bizet's operas, it is still incredibly beautiful. Originally set on the coast of Mexico, the locale was changed to Sri Lanka, set amongst a village of pearl divers living on the coast. The opera is most famous for the duet for tenor and baritone "Au fond du temple saint", with its faint tinge on homoeroticism as the friends pledge eternal love to each other. The music is perfumed with exotic sounds and while the story is a classic love triangle, it is wonderfully realised.

The opera is a real rarity around the world, except in Australia where it ranks with Puccini and Verdi in popularity. The arias and ensembles are a cascade of beautiful pieces, one after another. Recently produced at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, for the first time in 116 years, and by Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, where it is currently playing, the opera seems to be finally gaining a place in the repertoire.

Here are photos from the previous spectacularly beautiful Opera Australia production by Ann-Margret Petterson, showing various casts from several different revivals including the spectacular Emma Matthews and the fabulous Nicole Car as Leila, the virginal priestess, the sensational Michael Lewis as Zurga, the village headman, friend of Nadir and in love with Leila, and the gorgeous Henry Choo as Nadir, one of the pearl divers also in love with Leila.

71 - George Frideric Handel's Alcina

Handel's beguling opera of magic and seduction is a real gem of the Baroque and is one of the few operas from its time to approach repertoire status today. The music is simply sublime. One gorgeous aria follows another in a cascade of beautiful showpieces.

The most famous arias are "Tornami a vagheggiar" a spectacular aria sung by Morgana, Alcina's sister, though often moved so it can be sung by Alcina herself, and "Verdi Prati" sung by the hero Ruggiero. The famed castrato, Carestini, who sang Ruggiero at the premiere, thought the aria unworthy of his voice. With its gentle lilt, it is now one of the most famous castrati arias, taken today by a mezzo soprano en travesti or a counter tenor.

The plot revolves around the sorceress Alcina and her magical island. She seduces men and when she tires of them she turns them into rocks, animals and trees. There is much confusion, mistaken identities and disguises, but is good in the end. The sorceress is defeated and the men saved from their torment.

Here are two very different productions of this masterpiece. Robert Helpmann's opulent Australian Opera production, starring Joan Sutherland in 1983 and Robert Carsen's Opera National de Paris 1999 production created for the all-star cast of Renee Fleming, Natalie Dessay and Susan Graham.