In a few weeks, the Bard SummerScape festival in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., will be presenting a new production of Les Huguenots, by Giacomo Meyerbeer. This is one of the many, many once-classic operas not often performed these days, though it was a huge success at its 1836 premiere. It was perhaps the most successful opera of the 19th century, playing 1,000 performances at Paris Opera between its premiere there and 1906.

This new production is rare. Times change, of course, and tastes for Meyerbeer's demanding music, large casts and melodramatic storytelling might not suit modern audiences (or singers).

Yet Meyerbeer's sweeping dramas weren't the only ones of the era. One of the grandest of grand operas, Aida, is a perennial. Meyerbeer was no Verdi but he was a significant composer (significant enough that Wagner's Rienzi pays homage to him, though Wagner later excoriated Meyerbeer, mainly on anti-Semitic grounds). Other worthy Meyerbeer operas such as Robert le Diable are produced only occasionally at major companies.

At least festivals such as SummerScape or Caramoor in the U.S. and Wexford in Britain are exploring operatic repertoire that more people might enjoy – outside the two dozen or so perennials that make up the core content for many opera companies.

Many of us are happy to see again and again great works such as Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata, La Bohème and Tristan und Isolde. But there are certain fine Mozart operas that don't get revived much, such as Idomeneo. And it would be interesting to see a staging of such relative rarities as Rossini's La Cambiale di Matrimonio (The Marriage Contract), Donizetti's Maria Padilla and even, yes, Rienzi from Wagner.

Re-introducing such works can lead to their reappraisal. Until a couple of decades ago, Verdi's Luisa Miller was considered just another so-so opera from his early period. But now, this 1849 work is considered first-rate and has been revived at the Metropolitan Opera, Sarasota Opera and Teatro Regio di Parma, among others. And it took a while for Berlioz's epic Les Troyens, sometimes considered unstageable, to be acknowledged for the masterwork it is. His Béatrice et Bénédict and Benvenuto Cellini, though, remain works that are rediscovered only every other decade or so.

British opera companies have done the cultural world a great service by presenting lesser-known works. Scottish Opera recently staged Smetana's delightful The Two Widows, offering patrons a chance to hear something other than the composer's Bartered Bride. And it is presenting, with Opera North, its first production of Janácek’s little-known The Adventures of Mr Broucek. The Wexford Festival is offering Donizetti's underperformed Maria Padilla this year.

Many modern operatic works disappear after their first productions. Part of this can be that singers are unwilling to face the music, as it were, since many modern composers don't write well for the voice. But even Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress is mounted only infrequently. And Benjamin Britten offers many operatic riches outside of acknowledged masterpieces like Peter Grimes.

Among living composers, it would be nice to get a new staging of William Bolcom's underrated McTeague. I'm glad that John Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles is being staged soon. I'm sure there are other recent works that should be presented again for hungry audiences. I'd welcome suggestions.

In the meantime, this site has several performances of operas that more people should see. They include Giovanni Paisiello's Nina, o Sia La Pazza per Amore (Nina, or the Girl Driven Mad by Love) and Britten's Owen Wingrave, both ripe for discovery and reappraisal.