Conductor's Knowledge, pt. 3: Important Operas, East European Composers

the conductor's exam i took last week required us to know the names of a lot of random operas, things that can't really be studied but you would know if you just happened to be involved. nevertheless, today i spent an hour or so culling all the ones i'd heard of from wikipedia's list of important operas. because while i've heard of a lot of them, i would have a hard time recalling them on demand (as opposed to just recognizing the names). so much like violin harmonics, this is just an effort not to get overconfident in the fact that i've "heard of" things or can recognize them on sight as opposed to being able to generate names, notes, and data on my own.
the parentheses indicate the language of the operas themselves. if they are in a nationality that is not the composer's own, i've also noted the composer's nationality.

1600s: 

--Monteverdi: L’Orfeo (Italian)

--Purcell: Dido & Aeneas, The Fairy Queen (English)

1700-1750:

--Handel (German/English): Rinaldo Semele, Alcina (Italian)

--Rameau: Les Indes Galantes, Castor et Pollux (French)

1750-1800: 

--Gluck (Austrian/French): Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste (Italian)

--Mozart (Austrian): Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, La Clemenza di Tito, Le Nozze di Figaro (Italian),  Die Zauberflote (German)

1800-1833

--Beethoven: Fidelio (German)

--Rossini: La scala di seta, Tancredi, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Otello, La gazza ladra, William Tell (Italian)

--von Weber: Der Freischutz, Oberon, Euryanthe (German)

1833-1850

--Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale (Italian), La fille du regiment (French)

--Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini, Damnation of Faust (French)

--Verdi: Oberto, Nabucco, Macbeth (Italian)

--Wagner: Rienzi, Tannhauser, Flying Dutchman (German)

1850-1875

--Wagner: Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Die Meistersinger von nurnberg (German)

--Verdi: Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, La Traviata, La forza del destino, Aida (Italian)

--Smetana: Bartered Bride, Dalibor, Two Widows (Czech)

--Mussorgsky: Boris Godonov (Russian)

--J. Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (German)

--Bizet: Carmen (Carmen)

--Offenbach: Orpheus in the Underworld (French)

1875-1900

--Wagner: Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Parsifal (German)

--Saint-Saens: Samson and Delilah (French)

--Tchaikovsy: Eugene Onegin, Queen of Spades (Russian)

--Offenbach: Les contes d’Hoffman (French)

--Verdi: Simon Boccanegra, Otello, Falstaff (Italian)

--Rimsky: The Snow Maiden (Russian)

--Delibes: Lakme (French)

--Mussorgsky: Khovanschina (Russian)

--Borodin: Prince Igor (Russian)

--Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel (German)

--Puccini: Manon Lescaut, La boheme (Italian)

1900-1920

--Puccini: Tosca, Madama Butterfly (Italian)

--Dvorak: Rusalka (Czech)

--Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande (French)

--Janacek: Jenufa (Czech)

--Strauss: Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadni auf Naxos (German)

--Rimsky: Golden Cockerel (Russian)

--Bartok: Bluebeard’s Castle (Hungarian)

1920-1945

--Prokofiev: Love for Three Oranges (Russian)

--Ravel: L’enfant et les sortileges (French)

--Berg: Wozzeck, Lulu (German)

--Kodaly: Hary Janos (Hungarian)

--Puccini: Turandot (Italian)

--Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex (French)

--Weill: Threepenny Opera (German)

--Shostakovich: The Nose (Russian)

--Janacek: From the House of the Dead (Czech)

--Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (American)

--Hindemith: Mathis der Maler (German)

--Strauss: Capriccio (German)

ok this list is probably way excessive in terms of "need to know," but like i said, i basically culled out everything i had even heard of before. may as well.

the other thing that i should have been able to do on last week's test that i couldn't do was name the nationalities of composers from some smaller countries. i'll be the first to admit that i don't really differentiate between like... half the countries in eastern europe, or between the scandinavian countries, or even between the smaller western european ones like luxembourg, belgium, netherlands, etc.

Scandinavian:

Danish: Gade (1800s), Nielsen (1860s-1930s)

Finnish: Sibelius (1860s-1950s), Rautavaara (1928)

Norwegian: Grieg (1843-1900), Sinding (late 1800s)

Swedish: Berwald (1800s), Rangstrom (early 1900s)

Eastern European:

Czech: Gluck, Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek, Suk, Martinu, Schulhoff

Hungarian: Bartok, Dohnanyi, Goldmark, Ligeti, Liszt, Lehar, Kodaly, Kurtag, Rozsa

Polish: Bacewicz, Chopin, Szymanowski, Gorecki, Moszkowski, Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Wieniawski

Romanian: Enescu

Austrian: Albrechtsburger, Berg, Czerny, Kreisler, Korngold, Bruckner,

Estonian: Part, Tuur, Tubin

Armenian: Khachaturian

(Small) Western European:

Swiss: Bloch, Honegger

Greek: Mitropoulos, Xenakis

Belgian: Gossec, Ysaye, Dufay

Dutch: Sweelinck, Andriessen

Irish: Herbert (sort of)

ok nobody is ever going to read these lists but me, but it helped me to type them...