Opera: Top 10 facts about this historic dramatic art form

1. Gaetano Donizetti, composer of around 75 operas including Lucia di lammermoor and L’elisir d’Amore was born on November 29, 1797. 

2. November 29 was the date of the death in 1643 of Italian opera pioneer Claudio Monteverdi… 

3. …and the date of death in 1924 of Giacomo Puccini, who composed La bohème, Tosca, Turandot and Madama Butterfly among others. 

4. When news of Puccini’s death reached Rome, a performance of La bohème was stopped and Chopin’s funeral march was played. 

5. Danish architect Jørn Utzon, designer of Sydney Opera House, died on November 29, 2009. 

6. In 1697, Pope Innocent XII ordered the Tor di Nona opera house in Rome to be burned to the ground after hearing of immoral behaviour there. 

7. Mozart had written nine operas by the time he was 18 and wrote a symphony when he was eight.

8. The Bugs Bunny cartoon What’s Opera, Doc? was voted the Greatest Cartoon of all time in a poll in 1994. It is a parody of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. 

9. There is a public toilet in Kolkata with a design based on Sydney opera house. 

10. “In opera, there is always too much singing,” (Claude Debussy).