Opera
- Benjamin Britten – Billy Budd, with libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier
- Paul Dessau – The Trial of Lucullus, with libretto by Bertolt Brecht (March 18, Berlin), despite rumours that the work would be forbidden by the East German authorities.
- Marcel Landowski – Le Rire de Nils Halerius
- Gian-Carlo Menotti – Amahl and the Night Visitors
- Igor Stravinsky – The Rake's Progress, with libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman
- Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Pilgrim's Progress
Read more about this topic: 1951 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word opera:
“The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings.”
—Anonymous.
A modern proverb along the lines of “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” This form of words has no precise origin, though both Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (16th ed., 1992)
“I have witnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“He rides in the Row at ten o’clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don’t call that leading an idle life, do you?”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)