Six gripping recordings of operas from the Wise Music catalogue have been released in 2026. Two are 20th-century classics: Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Vanessa and Daniel Catán and Marcela Fuentes-Berain’s Florencia en el Amazonas. Four span the first quarter of the new century: Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata, Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s The First Child, and Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Breaking the Waves and The Listeners.
Binge-listen to our Spotify playlist on World Opera Day or explore it track by track.
Mark Adamo Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess | Odyssey Opera
Time: the present. Place: ancient Greece. The Peloponnesian Wars are raging. Women won’t make love until the men make peace. But the men won’t give up until the women give in. Which is stronger: the desire for power or the power of desire?
Since Adamo is both librettist and composer, he instinctively knows when rhyme schemes elevate the music and vice versa, as well as what kind of polysyllabic words can fit snugly into a vocal line. — Gramophone
Samuel Barber Vanessa | National Symphony Orchestra 1958 Pulitzer Prize in Music
At Vanessa’s country estate, around 1905, Vanessa meets Anatol, the son of a long-past lover and becomes close to him, as does her niece, Erika. Even though Erika says she is pregnant by Anatol, she refuses his offer of marriage. Vanessa and Anatol marry instead and go off, leaving Erika to wait for her true love.
…the National Symphony Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda gives this American masterpiece the deluxe treatment it merits. — Gramophone
Daniel Catán Florencia en el Amazonas | Houston Grand Opera
The steamboat El Dorado sails the Amazon toward the grand opera house in Manaus, bringing passengers to hear the legendary opera diva Florencia Grimaldi. She is onboard, disguised, in search of her lover, Cristóbal, a butterfly hunter lost in the jungle. Inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, Florencia en el Amazonas is one of the most beloved Spanish-language operas of all time.
Director Francesca Zambello and conductor Patrick Summers have not only engaged a superb cast but have also succeeded in getting the very best out of them. The singing, both by the soloists and the Houston Grand Opera Chorus, is superb. …Ultimately, Florencia en el Amazonas will become many an opera lover's guilty pleasure. — San Francisco Classical Voice
Donnacha Dennehy The First Child | Irish National Opera
A single womes into contact with a young couple and their new baby via repeated “chance” meetings. As the drama progresses their interconnected past is revealed. The First Child grapples with the impact of childhood bullying and the negative outcomes that can last a lifetime.
While The First Child benefited from an excellent production at its premiere, this recording underscores the inherent quality of the music itself. …Ryan McAdams and Crash Ensemble have delivered a performance of real clarity that makes the vibrant sonorities of Dennehy’s music glow. — The Journal of Music in Ireland
Missy Mazzoli Breaking the Waves | Houston Grand Opera
Bess McNeill, a religious young woman with a deep love for her husband Jan, a handsome oil rig worker, are in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s. When Jan becomes paralyzed in an offshore accident, Bess’s marital vows are put to the test as he encourages her to seek lovers and return to his bedside to recount her sexual activities. He insists that the stories will feel like they are making love together and keep him alive. Bess’s increasing selflessness leads to a finale of divine grace, but at great cost.
This has been a landmark year for riveting recordings of contemporary American opera. The latest revelation, Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek's Breaking the Waves staged by Houston Grand Opera…received the Best New Opera award from the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA)… Artistically compelling from first note to last, and heart-breakingly real in its exploration of the love, ugliness, and depravity that are essential parts of the human experience? Absolutely. — San Francisco Classical Voice
Missy Mazzoli The Listeners | Lyric Opera of Chicago
A middle-class mother living in a southwestern U.S. suburb notices a “hum,” a high-frequency environmental noise that only a select few people, the “Listeners,” can hear. A community organization quickly forms to solve the mystery of the hum, but when a de facto leader suggests a spiritual significance the meetings become increasingly cult-like, ritualized experiences. It becomes clear that this community of “Listeners” is on a collision course of destruction.
Through Mazzoli’s richly textured orchestral writing and Vavrek’s incisive dramaturgy, the opera becomes a powerful reflection on vulnerability, tenderness, rage, and hope, all sung into existence with a haunting sense of optimism. — WFMT New Releases
