We’re off to the Paris Opera for this week’s Sunday Opera (7/5 3:00 p.m.) and a production of one of Handel’s Italian operas “Ariodante” from September of 2025. The source material for “Ariodante” has been used in well over 70 different projects. In the past, we heard one treatment by Giovanni Simone Mayr on the Sunday Opera in his opera “Ginevra di Scozia.” “Ariodante” is a tale of love, betrayal, and redemption, and it explores themes of jealousy, deception, and the triumph of good over evil.

Milan’s La Scala is our destination for this week’s Sunday Opera (6/28 3:00 p.m.) and their recent production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” a 1934 opera based on the 1865 novella “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District: by Nikolai Leskov with a libretto by the composer and Alexander Preis.

Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” is the centerpiece of this week’s all-Beethoven Sunday Opera (6/21 3:00 p.m.) in a production from the Vienna State Opera with Maylim Bystrom in the titular role.

Most people have heard selections form Bedrich Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride,” but this week’s Sunday Opera (6/14 3:00 p.m.) will give listeners the change to enjoy the entire work in a live performance from the Vienna State Opera.

Jakob Beer is the featured composer on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/7 3:00 p.m.) and his forgotten 1824 work entitled “Il crociato in Egitto” (“The Crusader in Egypt”). Of course, the composer is Giacomo Meyerbeer who penned some 16 operas, and “Egitto” is his twelfth opera, the last of what is labeled his “Italian operas.”

We’re featuring the music of Jules Massenet on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/31 3:00 p.m.) with two of his operas: the beautifully atmospheric “Thais,” and the dramatic “Therese,” both with stellar casts.

Tchaikovsky is best known in operatic circles mostly for three of his eleven operas: “Eugene Onegin,” “Mazeppa,” and “The Queen of Spades.” You’ve heard “Cherevichki,” “Vakula the Smith,” and “The Enchantress” on the Sunday Opera, but on this week’s program (3/24 3:00 p.m.), we’re turning to his second existing opera, “The Oprichnik” from 1874, and it’s hopefully another work with which you aren’t that familiar.

Everyone needs a little fantasy from time to time, and on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/17 2026), we’ve got some in the guise of a libretto by Siegfried Wagner for his opera “an allem ist Hutchen Schuld!” (“Everything Is Little-Hat’s Fault!”). This fairytale opera about an invisible, mischievous goblin named “Little-Hat” or “Hattie,” was cobbled together from a number of the stories of The Brothers Grimm with a little Hans Christian Anderson thrown in.

We’re turning to two of Richard Strauss’ lesser-known one-act operas on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/10 3:00 p.m.): “Daphne” and “Feuersnot” (“The Need for Fire” or “Lack of Fire”).

We’re going for Baroque again on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/3 3:00 p.m.) with a forgotten opera that is finally getting some much deserved recognition: Leonard Vinci’s “Artaserse,” an opera that premiered in Rome in 1730.