Q 01/05

The Italian word 'opera' shares a Latin root with 'operate' and literally means what?

A) A song

B) A work

C) A voice

D) A play

Answer · why

B) A work

A work is all it means: Latin opera, 'work, effort', doubles as the plural of opus. So a composer's Opus 1 and a night at the opera are, at root, the ...

Q 02/05

Which Renaissance city staged Jacopo Peri's Dafne, generally considered the first opera, around 1598?

A) Venice

B) Rome

C) Florence

D) Naples

Answer · why

C) Florence

Florence is where a circle of humanists trying to revive Greek drama staged it at a nobleman's palace for Carnival. Most of the music is now lost, so ...

Q 03/05

Which Monteverdi opera of 1607, about a musician who braves the underworld for his bride, is the earliest still regularly performed?

A) L'incoronazione di Poppea

B) Il ritorno d'Ulisse

C) L'Orfeo

D) Euridice

Answer · why

C) L'Orfeo

L'Orfeo was written for the Gonzaga court at Mantua. Peri's Euridice of 1600 is older, survives and served as its model, yet L'Orfeo is the one still ...

Q 04/05

In 1637 a wealthy merchant family opened the world's first public opera house, the Teatro San Cassiano, in which city?

A) Vienna

B) Milan

C) Venice

D) Florence

Answer · why

C) Venice

Venice made opera a business: the Tron family's theatre was the first to sell a ticket to anyone who could pay. Until then opera had been a private sp...

Q 05/05

What is the text of an opera called?

A) Cantata

B) Libretto

C) Recitativo

D) Partitura

Answer · why

B) Libretto

Libretto is Italian for 'little book': early audiences bought the printed words to follow the drama. Most composers set someone else's text, though Wa...