As already in his Luisa Miller, Verdi’s eponymous figure Rigoletto is not a man of rank, but a representative of the people, in this case a malformed court jester. The composer devoted himself with the greatest care to the psychological shaping of his hero. This may have been due to the fact that the Venetian censorship had initially banned the opera for insulting majesty, and that it could only be performed on stage after numerous changes. Since the libretto was changed several times and the scenic structure was also shaken, the unity of the play had to be preserved and restored in other ways. Thus Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) transposed it into the personal, tragic conflict of the Rigoletto, which is decisive for the plot and the connection between the characters. The composer succeeded excellently in combining recitatives, arias and duets into a higher musical unity and in dissolving the old structure of the number opera. He himself even regarded his work as revolutionary.After the music had been criticized as too shallow and superficial by contemporaries, especially by followers of Richard Wagner, only Igor Stravinsky was able to overturn this verdict: He praised the ingenuity of the opera. Today, "Rigoletto" is part of the standard repertoire of every opera house, and the popular arias "La donna è mobile" or "Caro nome", which are extremely demanding to sing, are often performed in song recitals in isolation.

Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) wrote his late romantic fairy-tale opera in the early 1890s. It was premiered on December 23, 1893 at the Court Theater in Weimar under the baton of Richard Strauss. Even today, "Hansel and Gretel" is preferably performed during Advent and Christmas at all major opera houses and enjoys great popularity not only among children.Musically, the work is in the tradition of Richard Wagner, although folk-song motifs and songs are increasingly incorporated into the composition. Adelheid Wette, Humperdinck’s sister, wrote the libretto and had originally planned a fairy tale play as a domestic theater performance. An idea and an initial singspiel developed into a full-length opera, which was already an extraordinary success at its premiere. Already in the atmospheric overture, among others, the well-known "Abendsegen" and the "Hokuspokus" sound.The plot is largely based on the Grimm fairy tale classic of the same name and, in addition to stagings that are faithful to the work, inspires directors to come up with a wide range of - sometimes exotic - ideas. Fortunately, however, there is always a happy ending for the maltreated children, as well as the deserved punishment for the evil crunchy witch and a consoling final message: "When adversity rises to the highest, the Lord God reaches out to us!"