80 Opera Trivia Questions with Answers
80 public questions with answers, drawn from the well. How many can you answer?
What was the first opera performed at Milan’s La Scala?
Answer
Europa riconosciuta
Which Puccini opera includes the aria “O mio babbino caro”?
Answer
Gianni Schicchi
Which Handel opera tells the story of Julius Caesar’s campaign in Egypt?
Answer
Giulio Cesare
Which opera by Dmitri Shostakovich was withdrawn after criticism in a 1936 Pravda editorial?
Answer
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
Who composed the opera The Cunning Little Vixen?
Answer
Leoš Janáček
Which opera by Jacques Offenbach follows the poet Hoffmann through three troubled love stories?
Answer
The Tales of Hoffmann
Which opera by Leoš Janáček features the prisoner Emilia Marty, who has lived for centuries?
Answer
The Makropulos Affair
Which opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart features the clever servant Figaro and his fiancée Susanna?
Answer
The Marriage of Figaro
Which opera by Engelbert Humperdinck is based on the Grimm fairy tale of two lost siblings?
Answer
Hänsel und Gretel
Which opera by Giacomo Puccini is set in Nagasaki and centers on Cio-Cio-san?
Answer
Madama Butterfly
Which opera by Richard Strauss premiered in Dresden in 1911 and features the Marschallin?
Answer
Der Rosenkavalier
Which opera was the first performed inside the Sydney Opera House in 1973?
Answer
War and Peace
Which opera by Pietro Mascagni won the 1889 Sonzogno competition and premiered in Rome in 1890?
Answer
Cavalleria rusticana
In Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Otello, what is the name of Otello’s wife?
Answer
Desdemona
In Puccini’s opera Tosca, what is the name of the painter loved by Floria Tosca?
Answer
Mario Cavaradossi
Which Benjamin Britten opera follows the fisherman Peter Grimes?
Answer
Peter Grimes
Which Janáček opera centers on the immortal Emilia Marty?
Answer
The Makropulos Affair
Which Tchaikovsky opera is based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse?
Answer
Eugene Onegin
Which Wagner opera premiered at the Bayreuth Festival in 1882?
Answer
Parsifal
Who composed the English Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas?
Answer
Henry Purcell
Which opera by Bedřich Smetana is known in English as The Bartered Bride?
Answer
Prodaná nevěsta
Which opera by Dmitri Shostakovich was adapted from Nikolai Leskov’s novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District?
Answer
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk