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Opera Trivia

Select the correct answer from among the choices given.

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I’m not sure how much of an appetite there is for opera-themed quizzes, so please leave a comment if you want more.
Quiz by arjaygee
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Last updated: May 18, 2024
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First submittedAugust 18, 2023
Times taken28
Average score46.7%
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1. Which opera does NOT have a principal character named Elvira?
Ernani
La favorita
Don Giovanni
I puritani
2. What is the name of Cio-Cio-San’s maid in Madama Butterfly?
Harley
Kawasaki
Yamaha
Suzuki
3. Which is an opera composed by Gioacchino Rossini?
Il barbiere di Siviglia
La mère coupable
Le nozze di Figaro
Assedio di Firenze
4. Where does the opera Norma take place?
The outskirts of the city of Rome
Gaul
Anglo-Saxon England
An unspecified location in Scandinavia
5. Which character sings «Nessun dorma» in the final act of Turandot?
Calaf
Rinuccio
Rodolfo
Cavaradossi
6. Which Valkyrie role did Wagner write for a contralto?
Roßweiße
Schwertleite
Ortlinde
Waltraute
7. Which of the following did NOT compose an operatic retelling of the Faust legend?
Charles Gounod
Ferruccio Busoni
Robert Schumann
Hector Berlioz
Berlioz: La damnation de Faust; Busoni: Doktor Faust; Gounod: Faust.
8. John Adams (1947- ) composed which opera?
The Ice Break
Maria Golovin
The Prodigal Son
Antony and Cleopatra
Samuel Barber composed an opera (arguably better known) of the same name.
9. Which musical number can you hear in a standard performance of Carmen?
The Toreador Song
The Macarena
The Bell Song
The Flower Duet
Escamillo sings «Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre» (The Toreador Song) in Act II.
10. In an 1831 Bellini opera, one of the principal characters sings an aria cantabile while she is …
Offstage
Dying
Asleep
Drunk
Amina, the main protagonist in La sonnambula is sleepwalking when she sings «Ah, non credea mirarti». Luckily, she wakes up in time to sing the cabaletta «Ah, non giunge».
11. Carlisle Floyd’s opera Susannah takes place in which U.S. state?
North Carolina
Kentucky
Tennessee
Oklahoma
12. The Kitchen Boy in Dvořák’s Rusalka is usually performed by …
A non-speaking actor
A mezzo-soprano
A lyric tenor
A treble
13. Which of the following is NOT known to have composed an opera based on one of Shakespeare’s plays?
Giuseppe Verdi
Benjamin Britten
Ottorino Respighi
Ambroise Thomas
Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Thomas: Hamlet; Verdi: Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff.
14. In this one-act opera, a troubled woman discloses (during a telephone conversation) her recent suicide attempt.
La voix humaine (Francis Poulenc)
Night (Lorenzo Ferrero)
Sancta Susanna (Paul Hindemith)
The Telephone (Gian Carlo Menotti)
15. Richard Wagner had a son who was also an opera composer. What was the son’s name?
Tristan Wagner
Walther Wagner
Sigmund Wagner
Siegfried Wagner
2 Comments
+1
Level 85
Sep 20, 2023
Cool first quiz, but hard!!! I only got four right. Also try Famous Operas!
+1
Level 66
Sep 20, 2023
Thank you. I had a lot of fun putting this together, but I thought it had been removed from the site because it had so few takers. Last time I checked, it wasn’t showing up in the search.

How did you come across it?