The Theogony series by Chris Kennedy
and The Maxwell Saga by Peter Grant are good light reads for space opera genre

Jack Campbell wrote three interrelated series:

The Lost Fleet (6), the Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier (5), and Lost Stars (3)

Campbell has announced a 4th Lost Stars book, Shattered Spear, to be available in 2016.

If you enjoy audiobooks, Christian Rummel does a wonderful job narrating The Lost Fleet series as does Marc Vietor for the Lost Stars series.

great ! I'll be sure to check these out.. Thanks people

[Fizban]

If you want some real old school space opera, you can't do better than E.E. "Doc" Smith. His Lensman series and his Skylark series were written in the 30s and 40s and definitely have the over-the-top language (and cultural imperatives) of the time period. They are still good (and amusing) reading, however, if you don't mind the white-male-dominated tropes. I'd pass up his Family D'Alembert series though as it was written by Stephen Golden based solely on notes by Smith.

That being said, I have to say that H. Beam Piper is my all time favorite sci-fi writer, though I don't know if I'd call him true "space opera" or not. He was a definite visionary who would have become known as well as Asimov and Heinlein if he hadn't commited suicide in 1964 due to money problems. He's probably best known for his "Fuzzy Sapiens" books - Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuzzies and Other People. My favorites, however, are his Paratime stories about Verkan Vall and later about Lord Kalvan. Those would include, among others, Police Operation, Last Enemy, Temple Trouble, Time Crime and Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

You can find just about all of his stories and books at Gutenberg. And in the last 10 years or so there've been a number of books released by other authors (John F. Carr, Terry Mancour, Dietmar Wehr, John Scalzi) based on his works, though some are less true to the original material than others. I choose to believe that it is a tribute to his genious that almost 50 years after his death his ideas and words are still inspiring authors to write in his universe.

Surprised no shouts for the Culture series by Ian M. Banks
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata

[Fivetide]

I will second the recommendations for C. J. Cherryh's Company Wars books set in her Alliance-Union universe. Start with Downbelow Station - even though it's set near the end of the conflict, it sets the stage very well by giving background history in its preface/prologue. These books contain a hodgepodge of elements: space opera, hard sf, thriller, military sf, sociological, anthropological, economics, political, etc. Taken as a whole, they are definitely space opera and damn good.

And another big shout-out for Iain M. Banks' Culture series of novels - possibly the best space opera books ever written, certainly one of the most literary, even amongst luminaries like Dan Simmons, M. John Harrison and others. I could write on and on about the Culture as an introduction, but I won't. Just try starting with The Player of Games, the second published Culture novel. These novels aren't exactly a 'series' per se - each novel is completely independent and self-contained. Hardly any of the characters re-occur. TPoG is less action packed than some of the other Culture novels, but it's definitely an ideal starting point, despite its relatively slow first section. Banks essentially set the standard for the resurgence of modern space opera with the way he combined existing tropes in novel ways to create a very unique post-scarcity civilisation. Many of these features are now common in the space opera of other writers.

For a frenetic, action-packed, very fast-paced space opera from beginning to end, check out Scott Westerfeld's Succession duology. One of the most fun space operas I've ever read post-2000. Battles from the millimetre to relativistic scales, some politics and even a dash of romance. A little tech savvy, but not at all difficult to understand.

David Brin's Uplift books are also very, very good. Give them a go starting with Startide Rising and follow that up with The Uplift War.

Besides Banks, my other favourite space opera author is Alastair Reynolds, but he's much more dense with his prose, spends some time on very fascinating digressions and is much more concerned with keeping faith with science. I definitely think you should try him, but maybe he's not exactly what you might be looking for. His Revelation Space series of books are required reading, in my opinion, but maybe you should start with his independent novel House of Suns, which is considered one of his best by many.