This is the Finnish composer’s first opera and was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and premiered in 2000. It is about a 12th century knight on a quest to find his love on the other side of the sea. For an outline of the opera.

This opera premiered on 6 March 1853 at La Fenice – Venice. It is about a famed courtesan, her lover Alfredo, his interfering father and her ultimate death.

Nabucco was first performed at La Scala on 9 March 1842. It is based on the biblical stories from the Book of Jerimiah and the Book of Daniel about the plight of the Jews as they are assaulted, conquered and exiled from their homeland by the Babylonians.

This opera is in the opera seria style and is about Idomeneo, the King of Crete, set shortly after the Trojan War. It premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvillies Theatre, Munich for the Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival..

This opera is based on the play by Shakespeare and was first performed at the Theatre Lyrique in Paris on 27 April 1867.

Premiered on 29th March 1879 and based on the novel by Alexander Pushkin. It is about a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman’s love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.

Based on Czech fairy tales this opera premiered on 31 March 1901 and is one of the most successful Czech operas. A Rusalka is a water sprite from Slavic mythology which usually inhabits a lake or river. In this opera she falls in love with a human Prince.

Loosely adapted from novels by de Couvrai and Moliere this comedy has four main characters, the aristocratic woman, her very young love, her coarse cousin and his prospective fiancée. It was first performed on 26 January 1911 at the Konigliches Opernhaus, Dresden.