Some operas, sadly, are just never likely to make it to the stage very often - or at all.

Which magnificent rarity, therefore, would you like Roger Wright to include in his Proms Season? 

Rules:

• no pieces which are frequently staged anyhow
• optimally the piece ought to be attractive enough to bring in a Proms audience
• the piece ought to be a full-length major work that fills the evening's program on its own

Feel free to specify a cast for your opera, plus a conductor and an orchestra too 

I'll immediately pitch-in and stake a claim, just to get the ball rolling....

...  I'd like to have a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's woefully-ignored masterpiece THE OPRICHNIK (first performed 12th April 1874 in St Petersburg).  Like many/most of Tchaikovsky's works, it's a bleak tragedy of deceit, double-crossing and treachery, and inspired writing from the composer that's full-on adrenalin.  The story is the usual byzantine bloodcurdling stuff - in essence the story of Andrei Morozov, who decides to join the Tsar's Secret Police (the Oprichina) and earn rank and promotion that will earn him the social status to marry Natasha...  who otherwise will be compelled to marry the elderly Mitkov. He plans to use his new rank to free Natasha's family from the evil Prince Zhemchuzhny, who has siezed their lands.  However - Andrei's own father had once been a victim of the Secret Police, and his family are viciously opposed to Andrei's decision.  The plan backfires, and at Andrei's wedding with Natasha he is wrenched away and executed whilst his mother is forced to watch... he's been betrayed by his father's enemies.

The "big roles" are Andrei, Natasha and his mother, Baroness Morozova (who really has the lion's share of the piece).

I'd like to see the Proms bring the Russian National Orchestra over to do the piece, with Vladimir Ponkin conducting.  
Cast:
NATASHA - Elena Voznesenskaya (Bolshoi Theatre)
ANDREI - Mikhail Gubsky (Bolshoi Theatre)
BARONESS - Ksenia Vyaznikova (Helikon Opera/Mariinsky Theatre)
ZHEMCHUZHNY - Mikhail Guzhov (Bolshoi Theatre)

Care to be more specific on the "big Meyerbeer" and "early Wagner" suggestions, Ruth?  Quite a few people here still remember the Hytner RIENZI at ENO, for example...  what are you thinking of, DIE FEEN?  DAS LIEBESVERBOT? 

Ooh, yes please. I've never heard it in the flesh and that needs to be put right (despite some trepidation about the loud knock on the door for those of us of a nervous disposition).

Presumably it is quite a reasonable possibility? Has anyone monitoring Proms rumours felt even the lightest twitches in the grapevine's tendrils?  I see that Donald Runnicles conducted it in San Francisco. Now, if he felt like doing it in his first BBCSSO season and bringing it down to the Proms for a London performance that really might be quite something.

[You're not meant to be able to spell Messiaen correctly the first time, Ruth. It's one of those second attempt every time words, however often you have done it before.]

A further plea from here for St Francois - a real big Albert Hall work, one feels, and as good a centenary offering as one could hope for.

I'm not sure about Das Liebesverbot - it has curiosity value, but I have heard it and it is, frankly, awful - much less accomplished in my view than Die Feen, which is a nicely Weberian piece  (and one is tempted to add that if you really want a piece of early Wagner, you could do a lot worse than Hans Heiling, and I don't think there has been any Marschner in London for a very long time; an entertaining evening could be had spotting all the bits that Wagner lifted).

Les Vepres Siciliennes must be high on the list - I'm not sure it has been done in London since the ENO production in 1984 with (off the top of my head) Rosalind Plowright, Neil Howlett (a very fine and much under-appreciated singer in my view) and Richard Van Allan.

It is with a deep sense of regret (on my part for not living in London at the right time ) that I must correct you on this point.  I moved to London in summer 1999 and the first Chelsea Opera Group performance I was able to attend was Puccini's Edgar that autumn.  Their two concerts earlier that year - so near and yet so far  - were Les vêpres siciliennes and Rienzi.

Not actually the Proms so apologies for going off topic but Messiaen enthusiasts likely to be in the UK during term-times may wish to note that there is a La Transfiguration on Thursday 16 October next year: Royal Festival Hall, Philharmonia Orchestra, Kent Nagano, Pierre-Laurent Aimard with soloists 'tba'.

This sad anorak has already bagged a ticket. (I know, I know.)  

Reiner, there was a Prom performance of Leonore in the 1990s, though slightly before my time.  I also wouldn't count it as enough of a rarity; both Chelsea Opera Group and Welsh National Opera have performed it in London in the last five or six years.

As for La Gioconda, that's had concert performances by both ENO and the Royal Opera since the turn of the millennium - and a fully staged production by Opera North in 2000 (a revival).  If you are in the UK next summer and are desperate to see it, you need not stray far from the Royal Albert Hall for the privilege - Opera Holland Park are doing it