Lovely classics

Famous opera masterpieces | Featuring many great opera singers

Former vocal coach specializing in Western musicRyo
With the motto “Learn the basics and enjoy putting them into practice,” I worked as a vocal coach specializing in Western music. As a teen, I questioned the idea that “Western music equals English,” and started listening to songs from around the world. Today, I devour music from over 80 countries and run a personal blog introducing tracks. I often listen to genres like nuevo flamenco, bolero, canzone, and R&B. I’ll keep updating articles daily to find the one perfect song you’re looking for!

Opera is fairly familiar in Japan, even being included in school textbooks.

Still, many people may recognize the melodies without knowing much about the famous opera pieces themselves.

For those readers, we’ve selected a number of renowned opera masterpieces.

In addition to introducing the works, we explain them from various angles—the background of their creation, the appeal of the opera singers performing them, and more—so both regular opera listeners and those less familiar with opera can enjoy the content.

Please take your time and enjoy it to the very end.

Famous Opera Masterpieces | Featuring Many Great Opera Singers (111–120)

Marquis, someone like youRita Shutoraihi: Uta

Marlis Petersen Operetta Die Fledermaus "My lord marquis, a gentleman like you"

Marquis, someone like youRita Shutoraihi: Uta

This is one of the songs from the opera Die Fledermaus.

Die Fledermaus is an opera that depicts the events of a New Year’s Eve party, and it is performed on New Year’s Eve at opera houses in Vienna and other regions where German is the official language.

In this piece, the housemaid Adele sneaks into the party under the name of the actress Olga; when she is discovered by her master, Marquis Renard, she insists he has mistaken her for someone else and bursts into laughter—making for a humorous number.

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In conclusion

This time, I not only introduced famous pieces from well-known operas, but also discussed the appeal of the opera singers performing them.

While selecting the pieces, I realized there tends to have been more outstanding opera singers in the past than today.

For this feature, I chose singers from the 1980s to the present, but there are many wonderful singers from the 1920s to the 1950s as well.

If you’d like to enjoy opera more broadly, why not pay attention to singers from those earlier generations too?