Well, Jane Ann, Stilly River Sage in the post just below yours mentioned an opera in which the lead is a very strong woman who takes charge of a nasty situation and wins! Fidelio, by Beethoven (his only opera).

The heroine's name is Leonora. Her husband is a political prisoner, along with a number of other people. She finds out where he is imprisoned, then dresses herself as a young man and applies for a job in the prison, telling them that his (her) name is "Fidelio" (Faithful). She manages to find her husband, free him and the rest of the prisoners, and bring those who imprisoned them to book.

Not bad!!

Of course, one thing you need to take into consideration in some opera plots is the status of single women, and women in general, in the cultural climate of the times in which the particular opera is supposed to be taking place. It's not that the women allow themselves to suffer at the hands of men (fathers, husbands, etc.), it's that, in the culture of the times, they have little choice. Nevertheless, within this cultural context, there are plenty of strong, take-charge women.

In Il Trovatore (The Troubadour), which takes place during a civil war in Spain in the sixteenth century, even though Manrico, the troubadour knight and his love, Leonora (another "Leonora"; the name sings well), wind up dead at the end, the gypsy woman, Azucena, wins, exacting a terrible revenge on the Count di Luna and his family, who had burned her mother at the stake as a witch, the incident that kicks off the plot in the first place.

And Brunhilda, in Wagner's "Ring Cycle" (CLICKY) is not exactly a shrinking violet.

Don Firth

P. S. And by the way, Q, ". . . a non-Russian in a very Russian opera." American bass-baritone George London, born in Canada and raised in Los Angeles was the first Canadian-American to be invited to sing Wotan in "The Ring," and a number of other Wagnerian roles in Germany (Bayreuth Wagner Festival, I think), and he was also invited to sing "Boris Godunov" in Russia a number of times.