200th Post! Opera By the Numbers

Breaking down the math of going to the opera.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Last night, at a performance of Attila, a lady sitting next to us bragged that she had gone to see over 100 operas. Now, I'm 37 next month (and celebrating with the premiere of Armida at the Met!) So in honor of this blog's 200th post, I decided to break down my life at the opera...by the numbers.



I started going to the opera in 1982 with my parents when I was 9 years old.

By my (probably inaccurate) count, I have attended:

• 315 opera performances and "opera-in-concerts."
• 133 different operas.
• by 57 different composers.
• 5 of those were rock operas.

The numbers, by composers:

• 50 performances of 15 different operas by Verdi.
• 44 performances of 10 different operas by Wagner.

(5 complete performances of the Ring, which is 4 parts) = 20 operas.

• 32 operas by Mozart.
• 30 operas by Puccini.
• 22 operas by Rossini.
• 16 operas by Richard Strauss

I was surprised that Strauss didn't make the top five. His works are harder to cast, not always
as popular and therefore, done less frequently.

I've seen:

• 15 of Verdi's 28 operas
• 10 of Wagner's 13 operas,
• 10 of Strauss' 15 operas
• 7 of Mozart's 22 operas. Some of those were written when he was really young and they are almost never performed.

Operas I've seen the most times:

• Il Barbiere di Siviglia (15)
• Die Zauberflöte (10)
• Le Nozze di Figaro (8)
• Tosca (8)
• Turandot (8)

There are also a number of operas I've seen 6 times, but who's counting?

And by the time you read this, you can add "one" to those numbers because I'm off tonight to see the US premiere of Purcell's The Fairy Queen!