50 free Opera trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This opera trivia quiz covers four centuries of the art form, from a lost Florentine experiment in 1598 to minimalist operas about Einstein and Richard Nixon. The easier questions cover the names everyone half-knows: Carmen, The Magic Flute, Nessun dorma, the Three Tenors, La Scala, the Sydney Opera House and the Bugs Bunny cartoon that taught a generation to sing 'Kill the wabbit'. The harder end is for people who own more than one recording of Tosca: the world's first public opera house, the castrato who sang to a depressed Spanish king every night for nine years, the overture Rossini recycled from two earlier operas, the opera Puccini left unfinished, the newspaper critic who called Tosca a 'shabby little shocker', Callas's rivalries, Pavarotti's nine high Cs at the Met, Wagner's 15-hour Ring cycle and the theatre he built to stage it. There are also questions on the vocabulary of libretto, recitative, bel canto and verismo, and on the singers, from Farinelli and Jenny Lind to Caruso and Joan Sutherland, who made the form famous. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the operas, composers, singers and houses involved before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our classical music, musicals and The Phantom of the Opera quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Italian word 'opera' literally means what?
A work
It comes from the Latin opera, which is also the plural of opus.
Q 02Jacopo Peri's Dafne, generally considered the first opera, was produced in which city around 1598?
Florence
It grew out of the Camerata de' Bardi, a circle of humanists trying to revive Greek drama, and the music is now lost.
Q 03Which Monteverdi work of 1607 is the earliest opera still regularly performed?
L'Orfeo
It was written for the Gonzaga court at Mantua; Peri's Euridice of 1600 survives but is rarely staged.
Q 04The world's first public opera house, the Teatro San Cassiano, opened in 1637 in which city?
Venice
It was the first to admit a paying audience, launching the idea of an opera 'season' during Carnival.
Q 05What is the text of an opera called?
Libretto
The word means 'little book'; Wagner was unusual in writing his own.
Q 06Which term describes the florid early-19th-century style of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti?
Bel canto
Literally 'beautiful singing', it demanded supreme agility and pitch control from performers.
Q 07Verismo opera was introduced by Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and which Leoncavallo opera?
Pagliacci
The two short works are so often paired on a double bill that opera fans call the evening 'Cav and Pag'.
Q 08A Singspiel is a German form of opera that includes what?
Spoken dialogue
Mozart's The Magic Flute and The Abduction from the Seraglio are the most famous examples.
Q 09The high male voice of the opera seria hero was usually written for which kind of singer?
Castrato
Castration before puberty stopped the larynx from changing; today the roles are often taken by countertenors or women.
Q 10For which melancholy monarch did Farinelli sing nightly recitals for nearly a decade?
Philip V of Spain
Queen Elisabeth Farnese hoped his voice would cure the king's depression; Farinelli's influence grew further under Ferdinand VI.
Q 11Whose 1760s 'reform' operas, starting with Orfeo ed Euridice, reacted against opera seria?
Gluck
He aimed for a 'beautiful simplicity' and directly influenced Mozart, Weber and Wagner.
Q 12Who wrote the libretti for The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte?
Lorenzo Da Ponte
The Venetian priest-turned-poet later emigrated to America and taught Italian at Columbia.
Q 13Mozart's opera about the punished rake premiered in 1787 in which city?
Prague
It opened at what is now the Estates Theatre; Mozart listed it in his own catalogue simply as an opera buffa.
Q 21Verdi's last two operas, Otello and Falstaff, are both based on the works of which writer?
Shakespeare
Falstaff was premiered when the composer was 79 and is a comedy, a rarity in his output.
Q 22Wagner's term for his ideal fusion of music, poetry and painting into a 'complete work of art' was what?
Gesamtkunstwerk
In pursuit of it he abolished the distinction between aria and recitative in favour of 'endless melody'.
Q 23How many separate music dramas make up Wagner's Ring cycle?
Four
The cycle runs about 15 hours over four evenings, ending with the Twilight of the Gods.
Q 14The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna in September 1791, how long before Mozart's death?
About two months
The bird-catcher Papageno was written for the librettist Emanuel Schikaneder's own theatre troupe.
Q 15The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro are based on plays by which French writer?
Beaumarchais
Rossini's opera covers the first play in the trilogy and Mozart's the second, though Mozart wrote his 30 years earlier.
Q 16The famous overture to The Barber of Seville was actually what?
Recycled from two earlier Rossini operas
Rossini reportedly wrote the whole opera in under three weeks, so the overture contains none of its actual themes.
Q 17The finale of which Rossini overture became the theme of The Lone Ranger?
William Tell
The 1829 opera was the last of Rossini's 39; he then went into semi-retirement at 37.
Q 18The chorus 'Va, pensiero' comes from which early Verdi opera and became an anthem of Italian unification?
Nabucco
Verdi became such a symbol of the Risorgimento that his name doubled as a patriotic acronym.
Q 19Rigoletto, based on a Victor Hugo play, premiered in 1851 at which Venetian theatre?
La Fenice
Austrian censors caused serious problems first; the working title had been La maledizione, The Curse.
Q 20Verdi's Aida had its premiere in 1871 in which city?
Cairo
It was commissioned by the Khedivial Opera House; Verdi had earlier declined to write a piece celebrating the Suez Canal.
Q 24Wagner built his own festival theatre, dedicated to his works, in which German town?
Bayreuth
Ludwig II of Bavaria granted 100,000 thaler in 1874 to get it built; the first festival opened in 1876 with the complete Ring.
Q 25Bizet's Carmen scandalised its first audiences at which Paris house in March 1875?
Opéra-Comique
Bizet died after the 33rd performance, never knowing it would become one of the most performed operas of all.
Q 26In Carmen, Don José loses the heroine to Escamillo, who has what profession?
Bullfighter
His famous 'Toreador Song' comes in act 2; the story is drawn from a novella by Prosper Mérimée.
Q 27La bohème premiered in Turin in 1896 under a 28-year-old conductor who later recorded it. Who?
Arturo Toscanini
His 1946 radio broadcast is the only recording of a Puccini opera led by its original conductor.
Q 28Which musicologist famously dismissed Tosca as a 'shabby little shocker'?
Joseph Kerman
The opera premiered in Rome in January 1900, delayed a day for fear of political unrest.
Q 29Madama Butterfly's original two-act version was a fiasco at its 1904 premiere at which house?
La Scala
Puccini withdrew it, split the second act in two with the Humming Chorus as a bridge, and found success in Brescia three months later.
Q 30Puccini died in 1924 leaving which opera unfinished?
Turandot
Franco Alfano completed the score and it premiered in April 1926, about a year and a half after Puccini's death.