Question 1

True or false: Opera singers often wear microphones in major opera houses like the Metropolitan Opera to be heard over the orchestra.

Accepted Answer

False. Opera houses are designed for natural acoustics, and singers train to project unamplified. Microphones are rarely used in traditional opera.

Question 2

True or false: All operas are sung entirely in Italian, the traditional language of the art form.

Accepted Answer

False. Operas are written in many languages, including German, French, Russian, and English. Only early operas and many classics are in Italian.

Question 3

True or false: Opera is the only major browser that does not support extensions or add-ons.

Accepted Answer

False. Opera supports extensions, including full compatibility with Chrome extensions after switching to Blink in 2013.

Question 4

True or false: Opera switched its browser engine from Presto to Blink in 2013, aligning with Chromium.

Accepted Answer

True. Opera abandoned its proprietary Presto engine and adopted Google's Blink engine (Chromium) starting with Opera 15 in 2013.

Question 5

True or false: The word 'opera' is Italian for 'work,' derived from Latin, referring to the collaborative effort of composers and librettists.

Accepted Answer

True. 'Opera' is Italian for 'work,' from Latin 'opera.' It originally described the collaborative creation of a dramatic musical performance.

Question 6

True or false: Opera was the first browser to include a Speed Dial page for quick access to favorite sites.

Accepted Answer

True. Opera's Speed Dial, launched in 2007, was the first visual bookmarking tool that displayed thumbnails of favorite sites on the new tab page.

Question 7

True or false: Opera was originally created by employees of Microsoft as a side project.

Accepted Answer

False. Opera was created by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy while working at Telenor in Norway, not at Microsoft.

Question 8

True or false: Opera's name is an acronym for 'Opera Personal Internet Browser'.

Accepted Answer

False. Opera's name is not an acronym; it was chosen for being short, simple, and easy to remember in many languages. The browser is simply named Opera.

Question 9

True or false: Many professional opera singers cannot read sheet music fluently and learn roles entirely by ear.

Accepted Answer

False. Most professional opera singers are classically trained and can read sheet music. While some, like Luciano Pavarotti, were known for limited reading, the claim that 'many' cannot read fluently is false.

Question 10

True or false: In 2023, the most performed opera worldwide was 'Nixon in China' by John Adams.

Accepted Answer

False. In 2023, the most performed opera was Puccini's 'La Bohème' or Verdi's 'La Traviata'. John Adams's operas do not top global performance charts.

Question 11

True or false: Opera was first released in 1995 by a company based in Norway.

Accepted Answer

True. Opera Software was founded in 1995 in Oslo, Norway, and the first version of the Opera browser was released that same year.

Question 12

True or false: Opera introduced a built-in VPN feature in 2016, before other major browsers.

Accepted Answer

True. Opera added a free, no-log VPN directly into its browser in 2016, making it the first major browser to offer such a built-in feature.

Question 13

True or false: Some operas were intentionally written to be impossible for human voices to sing without modern audio technology.

Accepted Answer

False. Opera composers wrote for trained voices, not technology. Extremely high or fast passages exist, but they are physically singable by skilled performers.

Question 14

True or false: The first opera ever composed was written in 1597 by Jacopo Peri, titled 'Dafne,' and only fragments survive.

Accepted Answer

True. Peri's 'Dafne' is widely considered the first opera. It premiered in Florence, and most of the music is lost, with only six short sections remaining.

Question 15

True or false: Opera was the first web browser to support tabbed browsing, introduced in 1996.

Accepted Answer

False. Tabbed browsing existed earlier in browsers like InternetWorks (1994). Opera introduced it in 1998, but it was not the first.

Question 16

True or false: The shortest opera ever performed, 'Der Sieg der Sonne,' lasts only 90 seconds.

Accepted Answer

False. There is no record of a 90-second opera. The shortest known standard operas are 'La Cantatrice Chauve' (about 8 minutes) or 'The Telephone' (~20 minutes). 'Der Sieg der Sonne' is a real avant-garde opera lasting over an hour.

Opera Trivia Questions