List of radio operas

This is a list of operas specifically written for radio performance.

Broadcast premiere	Com­posed	Composer	Opera title	Librettist and/or source(s)	Radio station
24 March 1925[1]		Geoffrey Toye	The Red Pen	A. P. Herbert	British Broadcasting Company
24 December 1929[2][3]		Gustav Kneip	Christkinds Erdenreise (The Christ-child's journey on Earth)	Franz Peter Kürten	WERAG
May 1931[4]		Walter Goehr	Malpopita		Berlin
26 April 1932[5]		Charles Wakefield Cadman	The Willow Tree	Nelle Richmond Eberhart	NBC
13 July 1933[6]	1932	Werner Egk	Columbus, Bericht und Bildnis (Columbus, report and portrait)		Bayerischer Rundfunk
6 October 1935[7]		Bohuslav Martinů	Hlas lesa (The Voice of the Forest)	Vítězslav Nezval	Czech Radio
15 October 1936[8]		Heinrich Sutermeister	Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider)	Albert Rösler, after Jeremias Gotthelf's Die schwarze Spinne	Radio Bern
1937[9]		Vittorio Giannini	Flora		CBS radio
18 March 1937[7]		Bohuslav Martinů	Veselohra na mostě (Comedy on the Bridge)	Martinů, after Václav Kliment Klicpera	Czech Radio
17 October 1937[10]		Louis Gruenberg	Green Mansions	after the novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson	Columbia Broadcasting Company
1938[9]		Vittorio Giannini	Beauty and the Beast	R. Simon	CBS radio
3 April 1939[11]	1928	Marcel Mihalovici	L'intransigeant Pluton	Jean-François Regnard	RTF
22 April 1939[12]		Gian Carlo Menotti	The Old Maid and the Thief	Gian Carlo Menotti	NBC
2 November 1939[9]		Vittorio Giannini	Blennerhassett	Norman Corwin, Phillip Roll	CBS radio
29 March 1942[13]		Randall Thompson	Solomon and Balkis	after The Butterfly that Stamped by Rudyard Kipling	CBS
10 October 1943[14]		Jacques Ibert	Barbe-bleu	W. Aguet	Radio Lausanne
1949[15]		Tibor Harsányi	Illusions, ou l'histoire d'un miracle	P. Brive, after E. T. A. Hoffmann	RTF
1 December 1949[16]	1944–8	Luigi Dallapiccola	Il prigioniero (The Prisoner)	after stories by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Charles de Coster.	RAI
18 April 1950[11]		Marcel Mihalovici	Phèdre	Yvan Goll, after Jean Racine	RTF
21 July 1950[17]		Raymond Chevreuille	D'un diable de briquet	Chevreuille, after Hans Christian Andersen	Belgian radio
3 October 1950[18]		Ildebrando Pizzetti	Ifigenia	Pizzetti and A. Perrini	RAI
15 November 1950[19]		Nino Rota	I due timidi (The Two Timid Ones)	Suso Cecchi d'Amico	RAI
21 August 1951[20]		Rezső Kókai	Lészen ágyú (There shall be guns)	Péter Halász and József Romhányi	Magyar Rádió
11 October 1951[21]	1950	Renzo Bossi	Il principe felice (The Happy Prince)	Bossi, after Oscar Wilde	RAI
19 November 1951[22]		Hans Werner Henze	Ein Landarzt	after Franz Kafka	Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk
5 March 1952[23]		Franz Reizenstein	Anna Kraus	Christopher Hassall	BBC Third Programme
5 May 1952[17]		Raymond Chevreuille	L'elixir du révérend père Gaucher	Chevreuille, after Alphonse Daudet	Belgian radio
12 June 1952[24]		Bernd Alois Zimmermann	Des Menschen Unterhaltsprozeß gegen Gott (The People's Maintenance Suit Against God)	Pedro Calderón de la Barca, adapted by Matthias Bungart	WDR
5 November 1952[18]		Ildebrando Pizzetti	Cagliostro	Pizzetti	RAI
1953[25]		Hans Vogt	Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (The City Beyond the River)	Hermann Kasack	Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, BBC
4 December 1953[22]		Hans Werner Henze	Das Ende einer Welt (The End of a World)	Wolfgang Hildesheimer	Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk
10 January 1954[17]		Raymond Chevreuille	Atta Troll	Chevreuille, after Heinrich Heine Atta Troll, ein Sommernachtstraum	Belgian radio
24 September 1954[26]		Henk Badings	Orestes		Florence
9 November 1954[11][27]		Marcel Mihalovici	Die Heimkehr (The Homecoming)	K. H. Ruppel, after Guy de Maupassant	Hessicher Rundfunk
15 November 1954[28]		Donald Swann, channelling Dame Hilda Tablet	Emily Butter	Henry Reed	BBC Third Programme
9 August 1955[29]		William Alwyn	Farewell Companions	H. A. L. Craig	BBC
28 December 1955[30]		Germaine Tailleferre	Monsieur Petit Pois achète un château	Denise Centore	Radio France
28 December 1955[30]		Germaine Tailleferre	Le bel ambitieux	Denise Centore	Radio France
28 December 1955[30]		Germaine Tailleferre	La pauvre Eugénie	Denise Centore	Radio France
28 December 1955[30]		Germaine Tailleferre	La Fille d'opéra	Denise Centore	Radio France
1957[26]		Henk Badings	Asterion		Johannesburg
28 February 1957[31]	1956	Sven-Erik Bäck	Tranfjädrarna (The Crane Feathers)	Bertil Malmberg, after Junji Kinoshita	Swedish Radio
10 November 1959[32]		Grażyna Bacewicz	Przygoda Króla Artura (The Adventure of King Arthur)		Polish Radio
19 November 1959[19]		Nino Rota	La notte di un nevrastenico	R. Bacchelli	RAI
12 July 1960[30]	1959	Germaine Tailleferre	Le Maître	Eugène Ionesco	Radio France
30 September 1960[30]	1957	Germaine Tailleferre	La petite sirène	Ph. Soupault after H. C. Andersen' "The Little Mermaid"	Radio France
1961[33]		Niccolò Castiglioni	Attraverso lo specchio (Through the Looking-Glass)	after Lewis Carroll and also his Alice in Wonderland	RAI
1961[34]		Piotr Perkowski	Girlandy (Garlands)
14 February 1961[31]		Sven-Erik Bäck	Fågeln (The Bird)	P. Verner-Carlson, after A. Obrenovic	Swedish Radio
27 August 1961[35]		Emil Petrovics	C'est la guerre	Miklos Hubay	Hungarian Broadcasting Corporation
12 August 1962[36]		Bruno Maderna	Don Perlimplin	Bruno Maderna, after Federico García Lorca	RAI
8 March 1964[37]		Humphrey Searle	The Photo of the Colonel	Searle, after Eugène Ionesco	BBC
16 December 1969[38]		Bent Lorentzen	Euridice	Bent Lorentzen	DR (broadcaster)
17 May 1971[22]		Hans Werner Henze	Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer (The Tedious Way to Natascha Ungeheuer's Apartment)	Gaston Salvatore	RAI
1972[39]	1970–1	Bernadetta Matuszczak	Humanae voces	after Genesis, Saint John, Mahatma Gandhi, Anne Frank, etc.	Polish Radio
1973[40]		Tomasz Sikorski	Sinbad the Sailor	after a poem by Bolesław Leśmian	Polish Radio
1975[41]		Otomar Kvěch	Jaro je tu (Spring Is Here) (1975)
14 January 1977[42]		Anthony Gilbert	The Chakravaka-Bird	after poems by Mahadevi Varma, translated by A. K. Ramanujan, Daniel H. H. Ingalls Sr. and Anthony Gilbert	BBC
1978[41]		Otomar Kvěch	Před vánocemi (Before Christmas) (1978)
3 July 1979[39]	1976–7	Bernadetta Matuszczak	Apocalypsis	after Revelation	Polish Radio
1980[41]		Otomar Kvěch	Jak přišel podzim (When Autumn Came)
2 September 1982[43]		Karl Aage Rasmussen	Historien om Jonas (The story of Jonah)	Poul Borum	DR
4 January 1989[44]	1986	Nicola LeFanu	The Story of Mary O'Neill	S. McInerney	BBC
1991[45]		Giulio Castagnoli	Al Museo in volo & a zompi (To the Museum)	Ugo Nespolo	Rai Radio 3
1996[45]		Giulio Castagnoli	Lontananze vicino a noi	Dario Voltolini	RAI
14 April 2004[46]		Jüri Reinvere	The Opposite Shore	Tamu Tohver, Jüri Reinvere	Eesti Raadio
8 July 2005[47]		Amy Kohn	1, Plum Square	Amy Kohn	WNYC
9 July 2010[48]		Robert Saxton	The Wandering Jew	Robert Saxton	BBC Radio 3

References

Notes

1. "Broadcasting", The Times, 24 March 1925, p. 23
2. Der Komponist Gustav Kneip
3. Oster, Andrew: Radio, rubble, and reconstruction: The genre of Funkoper in postwar occupied Germany and the German Federal Republic, 1946–1957
4. Time (magazine), 11 May 1931.
5. Thomas Warburton: Cadman, Charles Wakefield, in Sadie, vol 1, p. 676.
6. Erik Levi: Egk, Werner, in Sadie, vol 2, pp. 22–24.
7. Jan Smaczny: Martinů, Bohuslav, in Sadie, vol. 3, pp. 237–9.
8. Erik Levi: Sutermeister, Heinrich, in Sadie, vol. 4, pp. 610–11.
9. Harry Haskell, Walter Simmons: Giannini, Vittorio, in Sadie, vol. 2, p. 405.
10. Robert F. Nisbett: Gruenberg, Louis, in Sadie, vol. 2, pp. 555–6
11. Cosma, Viorel: Mihalovici, Marcel, in Sadie, vol. 3, p. 386.
12. Bruce Archibald: Menotti, Gian Carlo, in Sadie, vol. 3, pp. 332–4.
13. Elliot Forbes: Thompson, Randall, in Sadie, vol. 4, p. 729.
14. Richard Langham Smith: Ibert, Jacques, in Sadie, vol. 2, pp. 779–80
15. Arthur Hoérée: Harsányi, Tibor, in Sadie, vol. 2, p. 651.
16. Anthony Sellors: Dallapiccola, Luigi, in Sadie, vol 1, pp. 1050–1.
17. Henri Vanhulst: Chevreuille, Raymond, in Sadie, vol 1, p. 838.
18. Guido M. Gatti, John C. G. Waterhouse: Pizzetti, Ildebrando, in Sadie, vol. 3, pp. 1025–7.
19. Giordano Montecchi: Rota, Nino, in Sadie, vol. 4, pp. 68–69.
20. Kókai Rezső-daljátékai: a Fülemüle, a Lészen ágyú és a Hét-falu kovácsa, pp. 38–39
21. John C. G. Waterhouse: Bossi, Renzo, in Sadie, vol 1, p. 566.
22. Andrew Clements Henze, Hans Werner, in Sadie, vol. 2, pp. 695–7
23. Hugo Cole: Reizenstein, Franz, in Sadie, vol. 3, p. 1287.
24. Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1952). "Des Menschen Unterhaltprozess gegen Gott". Retrieved 2012-09-08.
25. Vogt, Hans, in Sadie, vol. 4, p. 1037.
26. Jos Wouters, Leo Samama: Badings, Henk, in Sadie, vol 1, p. 275.
27. Lionel Salter: Radio, Early History, in Sadie, vol. 3, p. 1212
28. Emily Butter
29. Adrian Wright: The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn (2008), pp. 152–5
30. Tailleferre catalogue at Gérard Billaudot Editeur, December 1996
31. Andres Wiklund: Bäck, Sven-Erik, in Sadie, vol 1, p. 272.
32. Adrian Thomas: Bacewicz, Grażyna, in Sadie, vol 1, p. 268.
33. Niccolò Castiglioni: biography at Allmusic
34. Piotr Perkowski: Information, Videos , News and Images
35. Janos Kárpáti: Petrovics, Emil, in Sadie, vol. 3, p. 988
36. Raymond Fearn: Maderna, Bruno, in Sadie, vol. 3, pp. 140–1.
37. Hugo Cole: Humphrey Searle, in Sadie, vol. 4, p. 281.
38. Jens Brincker: Lorentzen, Bent, in Sadie, vol. 3, p. 45.
39. Adrian Thomas: Matuszczak, Bernadetta, in Sadie, Vol. 3, p. 273
40. About Little Warsaw Autumn: Sinbad the Sailor by Tomasz Sikorski, after Bolesław Leśmian Archived 2013-04-16 at Archive.today
41. Otomar Kvěch: List of Works
42. Hugo Cole: Gilbert, Anthony, in Sadie, vol 2, pp. 413–4.
43. "Det Virtuelle Musikbibliotek: Rasmussen, Karl Aage: Historien om Jonas". Archived from the original on 2015-12-07. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
44. Christopher Wintle: LeFanu, Nicola, in Sadie, vol. 2, p. 1122.
45. Castagnoli, Giulio at Operone.de
46. FIMIC (Finnish Music Information Centre): Jüri Reinvere: The Opposite Shore
47. WNYC: Spinning on Air, Amy Kohn's radio opera 1 Plum Sq.
48. BBC Radio 3: World premiere of The Wandering Jew, 9 July, 2010

Sources

• Sadie, Stanley (ed) (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522186-2.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)