Operas set in China

Marco Polo is an opera by the Chinese-born composer Tan Dun set to an English libretto by Paul Griffiths. It premiered in Munich on 7 May 1996. Described variously as an "opera within an opera" and a "fantasia on an epic journey", the multi-layered storyline is loosely based on the journey of Marco Polo from Venice to China. In the opera, Marco Polo becomes two characters: Marco, who represents the real person and is sung by a mezzo-soprano, and Polo who represents his memory and is sung by a tenor. The work is scored for vocal soloists, a chorus of 20 and a large orchestra of both modern and medieval European instruments as well as instruments from the cultures that Marco Polo passed through on his journey, including sitar, pipa, sheng, tabla and Tibetan horns and bells. Marco Polo won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams's first opera, it was inspired by U.S. president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with choreography by Mark Morris. When Sellars approached Adams with the idea for the opera in 1983, Adams was initially reluctant, but eventually decided that the work could be a study in how myths come to be, and accepted the project. Goodman's libretto was the result of considerable research into Nixon's visit, though she disregarded most sources published after the 1972 trip.

Turandot () is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Puccini left the opera unfinished at the time of his death in 1924; it premiered in 1926 after the music was posthumously completed by Franco Alfano.

The Bonesetter's Daughter is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Stewart Wallace to a libretto by Amy Tan based on her novel of the same name. It premiered on 13 September 2008 at the War Memorial Opera House of San Francisco Opera, which commissioned the work.

The Land of Smiles (German: Das Land des Lächelns) is a romantic operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár. The German language libretto was by Ludwig Herzer (de) and Fritz Löhner-Beda. The performance time is about 100 minutes.

The Consolations of Scholarship is an opera by Judith Weir with a libretto by the composer. The Consolations of Scholarship is based closely on the Yuan dramas The Orphan of Chao (by Chi Chun-hsiang) and the anonymous A Stratagem of Interlocking Rings.

A Night at the Chinese Opera is an opera in three acts by Judith Weir, who also wrote the libretto. Aside from an earlier opera for children, this was Weir's first full-scale opera, written on commission from the BBC for performance by Kent Opera. Weir incorporated an early Chinese play of the Yuan dynasty, The Orphan of Zhao, as the centrepiece of Act 2 of her opera.

The First Emperor is an opera in two acts with music by Tan Dun and a libretto written in English by Tan Dun and Ha Jin. The opera received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York City on 21 December 2006, conducted by the composer with Plácido Domingo in the title role. It was broadcast live to hundreds of cinemas around the world on 13 January 2007 as part of the Met Live in HD season. The following year, EMI released this movie broadcast on DVD. The opera was a co-production between the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Opera and was described to be the most elaborate Metropolitan Opera production since War and Peace.

The Nightingale (Russian: Соловей, Solovey) is a short opera in three acts by Igor Stravinsky to a Russian-language libretto by him and Stepan Mitusov, based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen: a nasty Chinese Emperor is reduced to tears and made kind by a small grey bird. It was completed on 28 March 1914 and premiered a few weeks later, on 26 May, by the Ballets Russes conducted by Pierre Monteux at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Publication, by the then Paris-based Éditions Russes de Musique, followed only in 1923 and caused the opera to become known by its French title of Le Rossignol and French descriptor of conte lyrique, or lyric tale, despite its being wholly Russian.

Turandot is a 1917 opera with spoken dialogue and in two acts by Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni prepared his own libretto, in German, based on the play of the same name by Count Carlo Gozzi. The music for Busoni's opera is based on the incidental music, and the associated Turandot Suite (BV 248), which Busoni had written in 1905 for a production of Gozzi's play. The opera is often performed as part of a double bill with Busoni's earlier one-act opera Arlecchino.