Italian Music
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50 free Italian Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Italy gave music much of its vocabulary. Opera was born there, the terms printed on scores around the world are Italian, and instruments that fill every concert hall were first built by Italian craftsmen. This quiz gathers fun facts about Italian music across the centuries: the composers and singers behind the best-loved operas, the theatres where reputations were made and broken, the instrument makers and inventors, the film composers, and the folk, pop and dance hits that crossed borders. You will also meet a murderous prince, a song written in pure gibberish and a tune that ended up in court. It suits anyone curious about Italy, from students and teachers to trivia hosts planning a themed round. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you leave with a story as well as a score.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Elvis Presley number one was set to the tune of the Neapolitan standard 'O sole mio?
It's Now or Never
It's Now or Never sold some 20 million copies and became his biggest international single; a 1949 Tony Martin record using the same melody inspired him to try it.
Q 02Which Venetian composer of The Four Seasons was nicknamed the Red Priest for the colour of his hair?
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi was ordained at 25 and wrote much of his music for the all-female ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a Venice home for abandoned children.
Q 03Which Domenico Modugno hit, officially titled Nel blu, dipinto di blu, won the first Grammy for Record of the Year?
Volare
Volare, meaning to fly, also took Song of the Year at that first Grammy ceremony in 1959, despite finishing only third at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Q 04Which Roman composer scored Sergio Leone's westerns, including the howling theme of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone had been Leone's schoolmate as a boy, and after five losing nominations he finally won a competitive Oscar for The Hateful Eight.
Q 05Which 14-year-old prodigy is said to have written out Allegri's guarded Miserere from memory after hearing it in Rome?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart heard the piece on a 1770 visit, and the tale rests on a letter from his father Leopold; the Pope soon awarded the boy the Order of the Golden Spur.
Q 06Which Italian anti-fascist folk song found a new worldwide audience when the robbers sang it in Money Heist?
Bella ciao
Bella ciao honours the partisans of the Italian resistance, yet there is little evidence it was sung during the war: the partisan version spread only after it ended.
Q 07Pianoforte, the full Italian name of the piano, literally promises that the instrument can play in which two ways?
Soft and loud
Soft and loud was the selling point: unlike a harpsichord, the new keyboard let players change the volume by touch, and its long original name was soon cut down.
Q 08Which Rome rock band went from busking on Via del Corso to winning the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest?
Måneskin
Måneskin is a Danish word for moonlight, picked when the bandmates asked their half-Danish bassist Victoria De Angelis to toss out words from the language.
Q 09Which Rossini opera has an overture finale that became the theme of The Lone Ranger?
William Tell
William Tell was the last of Rossini's 39 operas: after its 1829 premiere he went into semi-retirement, still in his thirties.
Q 10Which whirling southern Italian folk dance was once believed to cure the bite of a venomous spider?
Tarantella
Tarantella and tarantula share a root: both are named after Taranto in Apulia, where bite victims were said to dance for hours to sweat out the poison.
Q 11Which Ligurian seaside resort hosts the song festival that inspired the creation of the Eurovision Song Contest?
Sanremo
Sanremo first staged its festival in 1951 with only three acts, and it is now the world's longest-running annual national TV music competition.
Q 12Which Milan opera house is feared by singers for its merciless gallery fans, known as the loggionisti?
La Scala
La Scala was built in the 1770s on the site of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, and simply kept the name.
Q 13La Fenice, the leading opera house of Venice, is named after which mythical creature?
The phoenix
The phoenix marked a comeback: the company named its new house for rising from the ashes after losing its old theatre, and La Fenice has itself been rebuilt after fires in 1836 and 1996.
Q 21Which Verdi opera set in ancient Egypt was commissioned by Cairo's new opera house and first staged there?
Aida
Aida came about after Verdi said no: he declined the Khedive's request for a piece to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, then took up an Egyptologist's plot.
Q 22Which Verdi opera features the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, sung by Milan crowds as Verdi's funeral procession passed?
Nabucco
Nabucco made Verdi's name in 1842, and its exiles' chorus is still regularly encored; in 1981 a journalist proposed making it Italy's national anthem.
Q 23Which Puccini opera about penniless young artists in Paris was reworked a century later as the Broadway musical Rent?
La bohème
Q 14Which Naples opera house, opened on a Bourbon king's name day, is the world's oldest continuously active opera venue?
Teatro di San Carlo
Teatro di San Carlo opened in 1737, decades before the famous houses of Milan and Venice, and its horseshoe-shaped auditorium is the oldest in the world.
Q 15Which northern Italian city stages a summer opera festival in its Roman amphitheatre?
Verona
Verona has held opera seasons in its Arena since 1913, interrupted only by wars, and the building is among the best-preserved ancient amphitheatres anywhere.
Q 16Which tenor from Modena earned the nickname King of the High Cs after a 1972 night at New York's Met?
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti, a baker's son, hit nine high Cs in a single aria of La fille du régiment that night and took seventeen curtain calls.
Q 17Which Naples-born tenor became the first international recording star after cutting ten records in Milan in 1902?
Enrico Caruso
Enrico Caruso was paid 100 pounds by the Gramophone Company for that first session, and went on to make about 250 commercial recordings.
Q 18Which Tuscan tenor's Con te partirò became a global hit when re-sung with Sarah Brightman as Time to Say Goodbye?
Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli and Brightman cut the duet as the theme for German boxer Henry Maske's 1996 farewell fight, and it became Germany's biggest-selling single.
Q 19Which Lombardy city was home to the violin workshops of the Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari families?
Cremona
Cremona has been a centre of instrument making since the 16th century, and its traditional violin craftsmanship joined UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2012.
Q 20Which Puccini opera, the source of the aria Nessun dorma, had to be completed by Franco Alfano after Puccini's death?
Turandot
Turandot stopped short at its 1926 premiere: the conductor turned to the audience and announced that the opera ended there, because at that point the maestro had died.
La bohème gave Rent its plot and even a melody, with tuberculosis replaced by HIV/AIDS and Paris by New York's East Village.
Q 24Which Puccini opera, a disaster at its Milan premiere, follows a Nagasaki bride abandoned by an American officer?
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly was withdrawn after that 1904 first night and revised, and a memorial to Puccini now stands in a garden in the Japanese port where the story is set.
Q 25Which Leoncavallo opera about travelling clowns is usually staged in a double bill with Cavalleria rusticana?
Pagliacci
Pagliacci has a true-crime root: Leoncavallo claimed he based it on a murder from his childhood, a case his father investigated as magistrate.
Q 26Which Rossini comic opera stars Figaro, the quick-witted fixer from the first of Beaumarchais's three plays?
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville was hissed and jeered at its 1816 premiere in Rome, where fans of an older setting of the story by Giovanni Paisiello stirred up the crowd.
Q 27Which Italian term for an opera company's leading female singer literally means first lady?
Prima donna
Prima donna became an insult because of the stars themselves: their grand, demanding off-stage manner made the title shorthand for anyone temperamental.
Q 28Which Italian tempo marking, literally meaning cheerful, tells musicians to play at a brisk and lively speed?
Allegro
Allegro still carries a hint of joy from its everyday Italian meaning, whereas the even faster marking presto simply means quickly.
Q 29Which Italian word for the sung and spoken text of an opera literally means little book?
Libretto
Libretto is the diminutive of libro, the Italian for book, and the texts are still printed as separate booklets and tucked into opera recordings.
Q 30The word opera, first applied to sung drama in 17th-century Italy, literally means what in Italian?
Work
Work is the plain meaning, covering both the labour and its result; the Italian word comes from Latin, where it doubles as the plural of opus.