Later this month I’ll be attending a double bill of Barber’s A Hand of Bridge and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos. The latter, for those who don’t know the play, is the one with the famous line “L’Enfer; c’est les autres”. I posted the details earlier. Anyway, this led me on a train of thought that ended with the idea of Nihilist Night at the Opera; a sort of antidote to Rossini. Ideally Nihilist Night would feature a double or triple bill of unrelievedly depressing operas and should leave the audience with no hope at all for humanity.
What might qualify? Wozzeck coupled with Moses und Aron seems just about ideal. Want something more contemporary? How about Turnage’s Greek coupled with Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy?
The lines are open.
operaramblings 
Brilliance! I might suggest Wozzeck (an obvious candidate) paired with Ruders’ Selma Jezkova. The two are united by themes of economic/sexual exploitation and nearly-silent roles for traumatized children.
Splendid! Someone really should make an opera of Huis Clos
If “no hope at all for humanity is the goal” I feel obligated to suggest an eye-stabblingly literal-minded production from the Met. Of anything at all (perhaps we could recycle the Puritani one for Wozzek or something?); it just has to be so bland to look at that one feels deeply uneasy in a way that’s hard to explain.
Lotfi Mansouri’s Norma at the COC in the 80s might suit.