Opera seria and opera buffa differ in their tones and themes

Operas can be serious, comedic, or both

Opera is a complex art form that includes a range of genres. The most commonly presented types are opera seria, opera buffa, opera semiseria, opéra comique, and grand opéra. Each genre varies in its philosophy and approach, with differences in subject matter, tone, and display.

Operas first began at the end of the Italian Renaissance

Opera is a storytelling art form that has seen various eras including the Renaissance, Baroque period, Classical period, Romantic period, 20th Century, and Modern period. Each era has its own distinct style, reflecting the tastes of its people and prominent composers.

Operas rely more on music for storytelling than musicals

It’s easy to confuse operas and musicals since they both tell stories through singing and music—but a few key differences remain. While musicals rely on words as the primary tool for storytelling, opera relies more on music. Other key distinctions lie in vocal techniques.

The most performed operas of the 21st century are largely from the 19th century

Opera's not dead, but it does seem stuck in the past: Five of the top 10 most performed operas in the 21st century are from the 1800s. Three are from the 1700s, while two are from the 1900s. None are from this century.

Opera melodies from centuries ago still appear in TV and movies today

Even if you haven't witnessed an 18th century opera, you've likely heard melodies from one in modern media like “Apocalypse Now” and “Sesame Street.” Today, sports events, movies, and television feature operatic melodies even over a century after they were written.

Operatic singing involves a number of different vocal personalities

Opera singing ranges are typically categorized by gender and then further subdivided into specific voice types like bass, baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, countertenor, and soprano voices. From the lowest to highest range, experience the difficult and impressive singing styles.

Opera terminology heavily relies on Italian

Most commonly used Opera terms are not in English. This glossary provides definitions of keywords like “libretto,” the text of a piece, “tenor,” the highest natural adult male singing voice, and “diva,” a female opera star.

Music writer Paul Morley believes opera is an antidote to social media consumption

Music writer Paul Morley weighs in on the debate about the relevance of opera. While acknowledging criticisms that opera is snobbish and outdated, Morley argues the lengthy, emotive, and literary art form presents an important intellectual opposition to today’s world of fast-paced online consumption. Opera endures because it provides hope.

Mozart defined the Classical period with realism and social commentary

Dive into the Classical period, a time that emphasized a less extravagant approach to music and focused on societal issues. Defined by Mozart’s influence, find specifics about his career and why he’s remembered for his compositions and the wit and emotional depth of operas like "The Magic Flute."

Opera faces many economic problems today

Opera is a notably expensive art form, and therefore currently struggling to survive economically. Pandemic losses, reduced government funding, and dwindling ticket sales all pose a threat to its continuation. According to a recent survey, about half of the UK wouldn't feel impacted if all opera houses were shut down.

Pop music is often influenced by opera, but rarely embraces the full form

An example is pop singer Rosalía's album "Lux," where she borrows from opera, particularly in her more theatrical approach to singing, without fully embracing the form's theatrics and storytelling.

The first surviving opera tells the story of Orpheus and Euridice

Jacopo Peri's “Euridice,” premiered in 1600, is the oldest surviving opera. The story is based on the Greek mythology tale about a musician named Orpheus who attempts to save his wife from the underworld by pleasing the god Hades with his musical talents.

A step-by-step guide to attending the opera

Opera attendance has dwindled in recent decades, leaving some modern operagoers unaware of the traditional etiquette for attending. This how-to video instructs attendees on appreciating the music, dressing appropriately, and choosing the best seats.

Broadway's songwriters began experimenting in the 1920s

Broadway’s early decades were heavily influenced by opera and vaudeville, but songwriters in the 1920s began exploring more narrative-based songwriting and psychologically complex characters. That trend would continue in the following decades, though it would evolve in even more nuanced ways.

Contemporary operas explore topics like gun violence

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s 2021 opera "Innocence" explores the aftermath of a school shooting. Featuring traditional operatic singing in a modern setting, this story makes the classic art form particularly relevant to today's audience.

Soap operas are long-form, serialized melodramas

The genre was historically aimed at housewives, and its storylines often involve romantic entanglements and family dynamics that transpired over many years. Media scholar Robert J. Thompson called the soap opera “arguably the most unique contribution that broadcasting has made to the art of storytelling.”

Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro' satirizes aristocratic privilege

“The Marriage of Figaro” tells a tale about young lovers, deception, and dynamics between the aristocracy and their servants. Critiquing French society just years before the French Revolution began, this rebellious work of art experienced wild success while also being the subject of censorship and bans in the late 1700s.

'Madama Butterfly' by Giacomo Puccini tells a tragic story of love and loss

A libretto is the book of text from an opera. Peruse the libretto of Giacomo Puccini's famous "Madama Butterfly." Set in Nagasaki, Japan, the story follows an American sailor who marries and then subsequently abandons a Japanese geisha. The famous tale explores themes of betrayal, heartbreak, and cultural conflict.

The opera based on the friendship of US Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and Scalia

Former US Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia had a friendship that fascinated the country. The unsuspecting bond formed between people on two opposing ends of the political spectrum even inspired an opera titled “Scalia/Ginsburg” by composer Derrick Wang.

The Tony statue features tragedy and comedy masks

The twin masks, one smiling and one frowning, represent the dual worlds of comedic and dramatic theatrical productions. Their roots go all the way back to ancient Greece, where they were used to cue the audience in on character emotions, no matter how far back from the stage they were seated (and to hide the real faces of men playing female characters).

There are three main types of satire: Horatian, Juvenalian, and Menippean

These classifications are based on the Roman poets who popularized them. Horatian is good-natured and lighthearted, Juvenalian is bitter and more caustic, and Menippean contains many layers.

Fantasy is heavily influenced by myths, legends, and folk tales

In fantasy, anything is possible, mirroring the supernatural worlds of history’s earliest stories. The narrative voice of fantasy is often similar to early tales, too, with an affinity for the magisterial rather than the contemporary.

The Open Era redefined both men's and women's tennis

The early days of modern tennis were largely enjoyed by the upper class, who had money for lawns to play on. More often than not, the best players competed for the love of the game, not money. This led to Grand Slams limiting the competitions to amateur athletes. Things changed in 1968, considered the start of the Open Era, when professional players were permitted to play.

Medieval hospitals existed centuries before modern medicine

Long before modern healthcare, medieval Europe established hospitals that served multiple roles, including religious, social, and medical purposes. This podcast explores how institutions like Siena’s Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala supported urban and rural communities for centuries.

Authoritarian regimes sometimes used film dubbing to censor ideas

Dubbing rose in popularity in the early 20th century because of relatively low literacy rates, which made subtitles impractical. Totalitarian regimes—including Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, and Hitler's Germany—used dubbing to remove or alter unflattering or countercultural dialogue.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

The 2026 Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spurring new Ebola vaccine development for the Bundibugyo species.