There a quite a few operas that are too short to make up a full evening’s entertainment. Most of these are one acters but there’s the occasional on that’s not such as Dido and Aeneas.  In any event they pose the problem of what to combine with what.  For example, I’ve seen Gianni Schicchi paired with Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy, Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight and even with Salome as well as with its original partners in Il Trittico.  I suppose there are a few almost canonical combinations like  Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung but mostly I think the shorter works get neglected because it is hard to find good combinations that make aesthetic sense and are marketable.  So that’s my question for today; what combination of shorter operas would you like to see at your local opera emporium?

My contribution would be Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Golijov’s Ainadamar.  I’ve never seen either staged and both interest me musically a lot.