Along with the ones already recommended by other Listers, I'd like to add some others(roughly in chronological order), as well as some IMO interesting sidebars: Monteverdi: "Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria". Yeah, this is the least popular of his three surviving operas, and arguably the weakest, but the newish recording by Ensemble Elyma/Gabriel Garrido makes a very good case for this work. If you don't want to go for full-length Monteverdi operas, then I would recommend as alternatives the longer narrative madrigals from the Eighth Book. These are "Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda", and "Il ballo delle ingrate". The former is quite dramatic and has some pioneering instrumental effects in the strings. "La Calisto" by Cavalli. The Jacobs/Concerto Vocale recording is my favorite, with an instrumental realization that is even more colorful than the Monteverdi operas. "The Fairy Queen," by Purcell. This isn't true opera, but rather incidental music to a pretty mediocre adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". But the music (as much as a full opera in itself) is wonderful, and recordings don't inflict the dialogue on you. "La Purpura de la Rosa", by Torrejon y Velasco. The first opera written in the New World (1701), it's a different animal from most of the continental European Baroque operas, in that it makes more use of strophic writing and Spanish dramatic conventions (the libretto having been written by Calderon de la Barca). Recordings tend to emphasize the colorful aspect of Spanish instrumental music of the time. There's the version by the Harp Consort/Andrew Lawrence- King, and a newer one that I haven't heard by Garrido. "Hippolyte et Aricie" by Rameau. This was the first in a long line of operas by him, written when he was about 50! Another worth checking out is "Les indes galantes". BTW, some case can be made that Handel's dramatic oratorios are operas in all but staging. As long as you don't mind replacing your Classical mythological characters with hoary Old Testament types.... Bill H.