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The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.

A Life for the Tsar is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. The historical basis of the plot involves Ivan Susanin, a patriotic hero of the early 17th century who gave his life in the expulsion of the invading Polish army for the newly elected Tsar Mikhail, the first of the Romanov dynasty, elected in 1613.

Cosi fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (Thus Do They All, or The School for Lovers) K. 588, is an Italian-language opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni.

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio (Norma, or The Infanticide) by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on 26 December 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition. "Casta diva" is one of the most familiar arias of the nineteenth century.

Don Giovanni (K. 527; complete title: Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni, literally The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni) is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga (now called the Estates Theatre) on October 29, 1787.[1] Da Ponte's libretto was billed, like many of its time, as dramma giocoso, a term that denotes a mixing of serious and comic action. Mozart entered the work into his catalogue as an opera buffa. Although sometimes classified as comic, it blends comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements.

La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camelias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman Who Goes Astray. It was originally entitled Violetta, after the main character. Piave and Verdi wanted to follow Dumas in giving the opera a contemporary setting, but the authorities at La Fenice insisted that it be set in the past, "c. 1700". It was not until the 1880s that the composer and librettist's original wishes were carried out and "realistic" productions were staged.

William Tell (French: Guillaume Tell, Italian: Guglielmo Tell) is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis based on Friedrich Schiller's play William Tell, which drew on the William Tell legend. This opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years. The overture, with its famous finale, "March Of The Swiss Soldiers," is a major part of the concert and recording repertoire.

Daphne is considered to be the first opera ever written. The score is not known to have survived.

The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on a stage comedy by Beaumarchais, La folle journee, ou le Mariage de Figaro (first performed in 1784). The Marriage of Figaro is now regarded as a cornerstone of the standard operatic repertoire, and it appears among the top ten at the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.

Prince Igor (Russian: ????? ?????, Knyaz' Igor') is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Cuman/Polovtsian tribes in 1185. He also incorporated material drawn from two medieval Kievan chronicles. The opera was left unfinished upon the composer's death in 1887 and was edited and completed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. It was first performed in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1890.

Thaïs is an opera, entitled 'comédie lyrique' in three acts and seven tableaux, by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sibyl Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role. The opera was later revised by the composer and was premiered at the same opera house of the original version on 13 April 1898.