Questions in this quiz: Opera

Opera from Monteverdi to Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, and modern composers. Famous arias, classic operas (La Traviata, Carmen, Tosca, Tristan and Isolde), great houses (La Scala, the Met), and legendary singers (Callas, Pavarotti).

1. Which work, premiered in Mantua in 1607, is often cited as the earliest opera still regularly performed today? — Options: Dafne, Euridice, L'Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
2. At which opera house did Maria Callas make her famously turbulent debut in 1956, opening in Norma? — Options: The Metropolitan Opera, New York, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Vienna State Opera
3. The opening 'Tristan chord' in Wagner's music drama is famously analyzed as which collection of pitches? — Options: F – B – D♯ – G♯, C – E – G – B♭, D – F – A♭ – C♭, A – C♯ – E – G
4. Puccini died before finishing which opera, leaving its final duet to be completed by Franco Alfano? — Options: La fanciulla del West, Il trittico, Turandot, La rondine
5. Bizet's Carmen received a notoriously cool reception at its 1875 premiere in which Paris theatre? — Options: Palais Garnier, Opéra-Comique, Théâtre-Lyrique, Théâtre des Italiens
6. In which act of Tosca does the heroine sing 'Vissi d'arte'? — Options: Act I, Act II, Act III, The Prologue
7. Luciano Pavarotti's international breakthrough came from a 1972 Met performance of which opera, in which he nailed nine high Cs in a single aria? — Options: Lucia di Lammermoor, La fille du régiment, L'elisir d'amore, I puritani