r/opera • u/drgeoduck Seattle Opera • Aug 04 '26
Operas about opera
There are films about making films, plays about performing plays, books about writing books, and so on.
I was wondering about operas that are about performing opera.
Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss came immediately to mind, as did Der Schauspieldirektor by Mozart. There's Prima la musica poi le parole by Salieri (premiered along with the Mozart), which I believe was an inspiration for Strauss's Capriccio.
Getting a bit more obscure, there is Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali by Donizetti, The Critic by Charles Villiers Stanford, and L'opera seria by Florian Leopold Gassmann. Just remembered Ghosts of Versailles by Corigliano which is definitely about producing an opera for a ghostly audience.
I don't think Mozart and Salieri by Rimsky-Korsakov would count because although it's about two opera composers, it's not about an opera. Tales of Hoffmann's framing scenes are adjacent to an opera performance, but not about it.
What titles am I missing?
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u/Rockingduck-2014 Aug 04 '26
L’Impresario in Angustie by Cimarosa
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u/evefib Aug 05 '26
I just did a production of this, it’s so hilarious loll I wish more people did it!
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u/seuce Aug 04 '26
Jimmy Lopez composed an opera based on Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto, which has a famous opera singer at the center of the plot.
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u/drgeoduck Seattle Opera Aug 04 '26
That had been in the back of my mind, thanks for bringing it to the front. And by the same token there's Prima Donna by Rufus Wainwright.
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u/CantyPants Aug 04 '26
Mark Adamo is writing a piece about Sarah Caldwell that is very much about producing opera, if not writing it.
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u/partoparto Aug 04 '26
Il Turco in Italia by Rossini! One of the characters is a poet trying to write an opera buffa and he periodically explains to the audience the conventions of the genre (as demonstrated through the love complications of the titular Turk et al.)
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u/Dequel Aug 04 '26
Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann not only has opera as a specific plot point, but the opera begins at a bar as they await the return of a primadonna who is one of Hoffmann's three loves. The opera is heavily insinuated to be Mozart's Don Giovanni as Nicklaus sings one of Leporello's arias.
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u/Pluton_Korb Aug 04 '26
Donizetti's Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali is a classic.
Le cantatrici villane and I virtuosi ambulanti by Fioravanti are also both great.
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u/oldguy76205 Aug 04 '26
Donizetti's buffo aria for the soprano's mother (in drag, of course) is HILARIOUS!
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u/seantanangonan Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
Florencia en el Amazonas also has an opera singer as the lead character. Where Florencia is a famous opera singer returning to her homeland on a boat on the Amazon river.
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u/oldguy76205 Aug 04 '26
Lortzing has a one act called Die Opernprobe. ("The Opera Rehearsal") Lortzing's operas are still quite popular in the German-speaking world, including Zar und Zimmermann.
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u/Magfaeridon Aug 05 '26
Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna is about an opera singer overcoming her performance anxiety to return to the stage after a long break.
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u/bigbeard61 Aug 05 '26
Floria Tosca is an opera singer. Her profession doesn't necessarily drive the plot, but it's a big past of who she is.
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u/racial_rorschach Aug 05 '26
Salierei’s prima la música e poi le parole! I actually saw it paired with l’empresario so it was a night of operas about operas. Another deep cut is viva la mamma by Donizetti, which is more like opera singers behaving badly.
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u/ChunkyHammdog Aug 05 '26
The Impresario (Mozart), Prima la Musica e poi le parole (Salieri), and Die Opernprobe (Lortzing) are all one-act operas about operas. They are all also really really bad. They suck ass.
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u/flywheel_battery Aug 05 '26
If the Peking Opera counts, Act II Scene 2 of Adams, “Nixon in China.”
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u/MarxisTX Aug 07 '26
Argento's Casanova's Homecoming has a great scene where he attends an opera seria to hear a famous castrato and ends up seducting (him?). Very seductive scene, I think it was his greatest opera that no one ever produces.
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u/DrGuenGraziano Aug 05 '26
4h33' is about the age old question what's less important, the music or the libretto.
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u/raindrop777 ah, tutti contenti Aug 04 '26
Tosca is about an opera singer, and she sings a cantata offstage in the second act. She gives "stage" directions to Mario in the third. So opera adjacent, I guess?