The Tender Land by Aaron Copland is about the best opera I have heard and it is American. Have you heard Nixon In China by John Adams - another American composer? A lot of European operas are very romantic and seem to be more about adulation of the singers who perform them than the pieces themselves. Wagner operas are not this way and are very dramatic and psychological. My husband loves opera so I have heard many with him in the last several years. Mozart operas are very good and I have liked Verdi's Othello and Rigoletto and one Tchaikowsky opera I forget the name of. Trouble in Tahiti by Leonard Bernstein. Pagliacci by Leoncavallo (spelling?). We met at a Rameau opera but have temporarily forgotten the name. Werther by Massenet. Porgy and Bess by Geo Gershwin I like. Faust is a popular French opera. Also Carmen. Some of those older Italian operas I think are pretty light fare - pleasant but not much as far as stories. Usually some moral.
