Opera
- Paul Abraham – Die Blume von Hawaii (operetta), staged 24 July, in Leipzig, Neues Theater
- George Antheil - Helen Retires (not performed until 1934)
- Arthur Benjamin - The Devil Take Her, staged 1 December, London, Royal College of Music
- Alfredo Casella – La donna serpente, op. 50 (not performed until 1932)
- Gustave Charpentier - Orphée
- Paul Dessau - Das Eisenbahnspiel
- George Enescu – Œdipe, op. 23 (not performed until 1936)
- Walter Goehr - Malpopita
- Arthur Honegger – La belle de Moudon (operetta), staged 30 May, in Mézières, Jorat (Switzerland)
- Italo Montemezzi – La notte di Zoraima, staged 31 January, Teatro alla Scala, Milan
- Germaine Tailleferre – Zoulaina (never performed)
- Deems Taylor – Peter Ibbetson, op. 20, staged 7 February, Metropolitan Opera, New York
- Gabriel von Wayditch - Horus
- Egon Wellesz – Die Bakchantinnen, staged 20 June, Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna
- Jaromir Weinberger – Milovaný hlas, staged 28 February, Munich
- Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari – La vedova scaltra, staged 5 March, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Rome
- Eugène Ysaÿe - Peter the Miner
Read more about this topic: 1931 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word opera:
“A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,”
—James Merrill (b. 1926)