The Opera Holland Park casting and production details are normally released early in the New Year - I'll let you know.

Incidentally, thinking back to the very first line of your original post, I believe we are outrageously spoilt in London when it comes to keeping obscure repertoire alive.

Just for fun I've just had a look through my diary for 2007 and found that I've "collected", or am still due to collect, an impressive NINETEEN new titles in live performance this year - in other words, operas I've seen this year that I've never seen before.  They are as follows:

La fille du regiment (Donizetti/Royal Opera)
Agrippina (Handel/ENO)
The Excursions of Mr Broucek (Janacek/BBCSO)
Imelda de'Lambertazzi (Donizetti/Opera Rara and the OAE)
Beatrice di Tenda (Bellini/Chelsea Opera Group)
Poro, re dell'Indie (Handel/London Handel Festival at the RCM)
Der Hochzeit des Camacho (Mendelssohn/University College Opera)
Satyagraha (Glass/ENO)
Owen Wingrave (Britten/Royal Opera)
Amadigi, re di Gaula (Handel/Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican)
Capriccio (Strauss/GSMD)
La jolie fille de Perth (Bizet/Chelsea Opera Group)
L'amore dei tre re (Montemezzi/Opera Holland Park)
Iphigenie en Tauride (Gluck/Royal Opera)
La straniera (Bellini/LPO and Opera Rara)
The Sofa AND The Departure (Maconchy/Independent Opera at the Baylis Theatre)
Das Wunder der Heliane (Korngold/LPO)
The Sacrifice premiere production (MacMillan/WNO)

Were it not for the fact that events inevitably sometimes clash with other events, this list for 2007 would be even longer, as it would include Handel's Imeneo at St John's Smith Square, Delius's Koanga at Sadler's Wells, Landi's Il Sant'Alessio at the Barbican and later this week, Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride at Cadogan Hall.  (Edited to say: and there are also Benda's Romeo and Juliet, brought to London by Bampton Classical Opera last month, and Haydn's L'infedelta delusa, currently being done by ETO under the title Country Matters, both of which I simply forgot about )

In my view, the place of the Proms in all of this should be to cover the REALLY BIG stuff - things that need a platform for being an "event" rather than just another opera performance, and which people just don't do for want of forces.  Such as Saint-François d'Assise or 19th-century French grand opera.

From the House of the Dead hasn't been performed (let alone staged) in London for many years. Its last outing, IIRC, was a concert performance at the Barbican in January 1993.

For the Proms performance, I'd like to nominate Mackerras to conduct, while he's still active.

Entirely agreed, and that was my idea in starting this thread

Forces are not the only consideration, though (although they are certainly the main one) - works which require unusual amounts of rehearsal, or which will really only work when performed by outstanding artistes also fall within my idea of the Proms remit.

Opi, HOUSE OF THE DEAD was staged at ENO in 1997 on a double-bill with ONE THROUGH THE HEART, here's a link to the text of a Spectator review of the evening: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199711/ai_n8768374

I saw this double-bill, and I'm afraid I hated the production...  it was static, monolithic, and tried to score political points instead of letting the text of the piece speak for itself.  As far as I remember the entire set was a blue ice-cube.  I would support a HOTD Proms performance by way of giving the Mackerras-edited "critical score" a play.  However, I'd say that HOTD deserves to be seen in theatres,  and if there's a Janacek opera which cries-out to be heard at the Proms it's OSUD.

Yes, to Korngold although JONNY SPIELT AUF is possibly an even more deserving case? (Last done in London, IIRC, by the New Opera Company at Sadlers Wells in the early 1980s, Ken Woollam was in the cast).  I'm going to court controversy (as one of Menotti's more consistent advocates here) by suggesting that his pieces are so inseperable from the stage that they wouldn't really benefit much from concert performances?  I couldn't see how THE SAINT OF BLEECKER STREET would come over "in concert" - maybe THE CONSUL, but even so...

Oops, missed that! Mind you, if it was as bad as you say, it's not such a shame. I can't remember any of the Janacek mafia mentioning it, and perhaps that's why. Still, would like to have heard Paul Daniel's account of it.

Osud would make a good Proms opera, and leave room for something else besides.

Was in the arena for it, up near the front, and it was a super performance considering the miserably unsympathetic setting the RAH makes for baroque opera in general!   Entirely agreed about the ENO "Powerhouse" OSUD too

Although not a Proms enthusiast nor someone who attends opera performances these days, I'm interested to see which rarely performed operas you'd like to have at the Proms. I'm reminded of an exceedingly short and miserable but beautifully written little opera which we performed when I was a music student over 25 years ago, Vaughn Williams' Riders to the Sea. I'd like to see and hear this again - and I'm wondering which opera, if any, would be suitable to perform alongside it in a double bill.