# List of radio operas

This is a list of operas specifically written for radio performance.
| Broadcast premiere | Com­posed | Composer | Opera title | Librettist and/or source(s) | Radio station |
| 24 March 1925 | | Geoffrey Toye | The Red Pen | A. P. Herbert | British Broadcasting Company |
| 24 December 1929 | | Gustav Kneip | Christkinds Erdenreise (The Christ-child's journey on Earth) | Franz Peter Kürten [de] | WERAG |
| May 1931 | | Walter Goehr | Malpopita | | Berlin |
| July 1931 | | Mark Lubbock | The King Can Do No Wrong | C Denis Freeman | British Broadcasting Corporation |
| 26 April 1932 | | Charles Wakefield Cadman | The Willow Tree | Nelle Richmond Eberhart | NBC |
| 13 July 1933 | 1932 | Werner Egk | Columbus, Bericht und Bildnis (Columbus, report and portrait) | | Bayerischer Rundfunk |
| 6 October 1935 | | Bohuslav Martinů | Hlas lesa (The Voice of the Forest) | Vítězslav Nezval | Czech Radio |
| 15 October 1936 | | Heinrich Sutermeister | Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider) | Albert Rösler, after Jeremias Gotthelf's Die schwarze Spinne | Radio Bern |
| 1937 | | Vittorio Giannini | Flora | | CBS Radio |
| 18 March 1937 | | Bohuslav Martinů | Veselohra na mostě (Comedy on the Bridge) | Martinů, after Václav Kliment Klicpera | Czech Radio |
| 17 October 1937 | | Louis Gruenberg | Green Mansions | after the novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson | Columbia Broadcasting Company |
| 1938 | | Vittorio Giannini | Beauty and the Beast | R. Simon | CBS Radio |
| 3 April 1939 | 1928 | Marcel Mihalovici | L'intransigeant Pluton | Jean-François Regnard | RTF |
| 22 April 1939 | | Gian Carlo Menotti | The Old Maid and the Thief | Gian Carlo Menotti | NBC |
| 2 November 1939 | | Vittorio Giannini | Blennerhassett | Norman Corwin, Phillip Roll | CBS Radio |
| 29 March 1942 | | Randall Thompson | Solomon and Balkis | after The Butterfly that Stamped by Rudyard Kipling | CBS |
| 15 September 1942 | | Mark Lubbock | The Rose and the Violet | Barbara Cartland | British Broadcasting Corporation |
| 10 October 1943 | | Jacques Ibert | Barbe-bleu | W. Aguet | Radio Lausanne |
| 1949 | | Tibor Harsányi | Illusions, ou l'histoire d'un miracle | P. Brive, after E. T. A. Hoffmann | RTF |
| 1 December 1949 | 1944–48 | Luigi Dallapiccola | Il prigioniero (The Prisoner) | after stories by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Charles De Coster. | RAI |
| 18 April 1950 | | Marcel Mihalovici | Phèdre | Yvan Goll, after Jean Racine | RTF |
| 21 July 1950 | | Raymond Chevreuille | D'un diable de briquet | Chevreuille, after Hans Christian Andersen | Belgian radio |
| 3 October 1950 | | Ildebrando Pizzetti | Ifigenia | Pizzetti and A. Perrini | RAI |
| 15 November 1950 | | Nino Rota | I due timidi (The Two Timid Ones) | Suso Cecchi d'Amico | RAI |
| 21 August 1951 | | Rezső Kókai | Lészen ágyú (There shall be guns) | Péter Halász and József Romhányi | Magyar Rádió |
| 11 October 1951 | 1950 | Renzo Bossi | Il principe felice (The Happy Prince) | Bossi, after Oscar Wilde | RAI |
| 19 November 1951 | | Hans Werner Henze | Ein Landarzt | after Franz Kafka | Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk |
| 5 March 1952 | | Franz Reizenstein | Anna Kraus | Christopher Hassall | BBC Third Programme |
| 5 May 1952 | | Raymond Chevreuille | L'elixir du révérend père Gaucher | Chevreuille, after Alphonse Daudet | Belgian radio |
| 12 June 1952 | | Bernd Alois Zimmermann | Des Menschen Unterhaltsprozeß gegen Gott (The People's Maintenance Suit Against God) | Pedro Calderón de la Barca, adapted by Matthias Bungart | WDR |
| 5 November 1952 | | Ildebrando Pizzetti | Cagliostro | Pizzetti | RAI |
| 1953 | | Hans Vogt | Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (The City Beyond the River) | Hermann Kasack | Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, BBC |
| 4 December 1953 | | Hans Werner Henze | Das Ende einer Welt (The End of a World) | Wolfgang Hildesheimer | Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk |
| 10 January 1954 | | Raymond Chevreuille | Atta Troll | Chevreuille, after Heinrich Heine Atta Troll, ein Sommernachtstraum | Belgian radio |
| 24 September 1954 | | Henk Badings | Orestes | | Florence |
| 9 November 1954 | | Marcel Mihalovici | Die Heimkehr (The Homecoming) | K. H. Ruppel, after Guy de Maupassant | Hessischer Rundfunk |
| 15 November 1954 | | Donald Swann, channelling Dame Hilda Tablet | Emily Butter | Henry Reed | BBC Third Programme |
| 9 August 1955 | | William Alwyn | Farewell Companions | H. A. L. Craig | BBC |
| 28 December 1955 | | Germaine Tailleferre | Monsieur Petit Pois achète un château | Denise Centore | Radio France |
| 28 December 1955 | | Germaine Tailleferre | Le bel ambitieux | Denise Centore | Radio France |
| 28 December 1955 | | Germaine Tailleferre | La pauvre Eugénie | Denise Centore | Radio France |
| 28 December 1955 | | Germaine Tailleferre | La Fille d'opéra | Denise Centore | Radio France |
| 1957 | | Henk Badings | Asterion | | Johannesburg |
| 28 February 1957 | 1956 | Sven-Erik Bäck | Tranfjädrarna (The Crane Feathers) | Bertil Malmberg, after Junji Kinoshita | Swedish Radio |
| 1957 | 1956 | Winfried Zillig | Die Verlobung in St. Domingo (The engagement in St. Domingo) | After Heinrich von Kleist | Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk |
| 30 July 1959 | | Kurt Schwaen | Fetzers Flucht (Fetzer's Escape) | | Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DDR 1) |
| 10 November 1959 | | Grażyna Bacewicz | Przygoda Króla Artura (The Adventure of King Arthur) | | Polish Radio |
| 19 November 1959 | | Nino Rota | La notte di un nevrastenico | R. Bacchelli | RAI |
| 12 July 1960 | 1959 | Germaine Tailleferre | Le Maître | Eugène Ionesco | Radio France |
| 30 September 1960 | 1957 | Germaine Tailleferre | La petite sirène | Ph. Soupault after H. C. Andersen' "The Little Mermaid" | Radio France |
| 1961 | | Niccolò Castiglioni | Attraverso lo specchio (Through the Looking-Glass) | after Lewis Carroll and also his Alice in Wonderland | RAI |
| 1961 | | Piotr Perkowski | Girlandy (Garlands) | | |
| 14 February 1961 | | Sven-Erik Bäck | Fågeln (The Bird) | P. Verner-Carlson, after A. Obrenovic | Swedish Radio |
| 27 August 1961 | | Emil Petrovics | C'est la guerre | Miklos Hubay | Hungarian Broadcasting Corporation |
| 12 August 1962 | | Bruno Maderna | Don Perlimplin | Bruno Maderna, after Federico García Lorca | RAI |
| 8 March 1964 | | Humphrey Searle | The Photo of the Colonel | Searle, after Eugène Ionesco | BBC |
| 1968 | | Hans Ulrich Engelmann | Der Fall van Damm (The Case van Damm) | Markus Kuttner | Westdeutscher Rundfunk |
| 16 December 1969 | | Bent Lorentzen | Euridice | Bent Lorentzen | DR (broadcaster) |
| 17 May 1971 | | Hans Werner Henze | Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer (The Tedious Way to Natascha Ungeheuer's Apartment) | Gaston Salvatore | RAI |
| 1972 | 1970–71 | Bernadetta Matuszczak | Humanae voces | after Genesis, Saint John, Mahatma Gandhi, Anne Frank, etc. | Polish Radio |
| 1973 | | Tomasz Sikorski | Sinbad the Sailor | after a poem by Bolesław Leśmian | Polish Radio |
| 1975 | | Otomar Kvěch | Jaro je tu (Spring Is Here) (1975) | | |
| 14 January 1977 | | Anthony Gilbert | The Chakravaka-Bird | after poems by Mahadevi Varma, translated by A. K. Ramanujan, Daniel H. H. Ingalls Sr. and Anthony Gilbert | BBC |
| 1978 | | Otomar Kvěch | Před vánocemi (Before Christmas) (1978) | | |
| 3 July 1979 | 1976–77 | Bernadetta Matuszczak | Apocalypsis | after Revelation | Polish Radio |
| 1980 | | Otomar Kvěch | Jak přišel podzim (When Autumn Came) | | |
| 2 September 1982 | | Karl Aage Rasmussen | Historien om Jonas (The story of Jonah) | Poul Borum | DR |
| 14 September 1982 | 1982 | Thea Musgrave | An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge | Musgrave | BBC Radio 3 |
| 4 January 1989 | 1986 | Nicola LeFanu | The Story of Mary O'Neill | S. McInerney | BBC |
| 1991 | | Giulio Castagnoli | Al Museo in volo & a zompi (To the Museum) | Ugo Nespolo | Rai Radio 3 |
| 1996 | | Giulio Castagnoli | Lontananze vicino a noi | Dario Voltolini | RAI |
| 14 April 2004 | | Jüri Reinvere | The Opposite Shore | Tamu Tohver, Jüri Reinvere | Eesti Raadio |
| 8 July 2005 | | Amy Kohn | 1, Plum Square | Amy Kohn | WNYC |
| 9 July 2010 | | Robert Saxton | The Wandering Jew | Robert Saxton | BBC Radio 3 |