The Met Opera Database

Opera fanatics obsessed with seeking out little known facts can find a wealth of information by going to the Met Opera database and then clicking on the dull sounding "Repertory Report."  Not only is this a full listing of every opera ever performed at the Met, but it also shows the frequency with which each was staged as well as its first and last appearance.

There are few surprises at the top of the list.  That perennial favorite La Bohème, shown now almost every season, leads with 1,245 performances beginning in 1900.  German opera first appears at #12 with Lohengrin totaling 618 performances beginning in 1883.  What I consider the greatest opera of all, Don Giovanni, appears on the list at #15 with 538 performances also beginning in 1883.  (1883 must have been an exciting year to have attended the Met.  Aside from Lohengrin and Don Giovanni, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Faust, Il Trovatore, Lucia di Lammermoor and Il Barbiere di Siviglia all premiered that same year.)

It is at the bottom of the list that the most surprises are to be found among operas with the fewest performances on record.  Though some are important works only recently added to the repertory (such as Maria Stuarda which premiered last year and has so far a history of only 8 performances), who would have guessed that La Wally would have been shown only 4 times and all the way back in 1909 at that?  And then there are the intriguing titles about which one can only wonder - The Dance in Place Congo (5 performances in 1918), In the Pasha's Garden (3 performances in 1935) and The Pipe of Desire (3 performances in 1910). My favorite title is The Bat which had 12 performances in the years 1936 - 38 when Bela Lugosi films ruled the cinema.  Could there have been a connection?