Lisa Hirsch created a fantasy season of operas after seeing the conservative programming found in season announcements all over the country. Her three posts prompted others to make their own wishlists/ fantasy seasons. This is all fun to ponder and I want in on this action, so I approached it from the local perspective, as if I were programming San Francisco Opera for the following four seasons after 2012. My rules, starting from what I suggested in an earlier post:  half the season has to be standard rep (or by a composer associated with it); the other half is more challenging or unusual- I call this the "Janus Approach"; there can't be more operas sung in German than there are in Italian in any one season; nothing can be put onstage that has appeared in the last ten years; 12 operas per season, a number I ended up because my original list was comprised of 24 operas I doubt we'll see onstage in the next twenty four years the way things are going. The standard rep requirement knocks out earlier music, which is of less interest to me.

Season 1:
Verdi: I Masnadieri
Puccini: Edgar
Rossini: Il Viaggio a Reims
Berlioz: Les Troyens
Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande
Strauss: Arabella
Menotti: double feature of The Medium and The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois
Turnage: Anna Nicole
Janacek: The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century 
Saariaho: Adriana Mater
Schoenberg: Moses und Aron
Reimann: Lear

Season 2: 
Verdi: Aroldo
Rossini: Tancredi
Giordano: Andrea Chenier
Wagner: Parsifal
Strauss: Capriccio
Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini
Berg: Lulu
Britten: Peter Grimes
Barber: Vanessa
Poulenc: Dialogues of the Carmelites
Janacek: Jenufa 
Rachmaninov: Aleko, Miserly Knight and Francesa da Rimini

Season 3: 
Verdi: Falstaff  
Bellini: I Puritani 
Donizetti: Roberto Devereux
Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
Ravel:  L'enfant et les Sortileges paired with Poulenc's Les Mamelles des Tiresias
Berlioz: Beatrice et Benedict
Szymanowski:  King Roger
Prokofiev:  The Fiery Angel 
Picker: An American Tragedy
Birstwisle: Punch and Judy
Zimmerman: Die Soldaten

Season 4:
Verdi:  I Vespri Siciliani
Rossini: Semiramide
Donizetti Don Pasquale
Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte
Wagner: Lohengrin
Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos
Zemlinsky: Der König Kandaules
Dallapiccola:  The Prisoner paired with Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle 
Penderecki:  The Devils of Loudun
Tippett:  King Priam 
Nielsen: Saul and David
Birstwistle: The Mask of Orpheus