Opera & Musical Theater Educational Posters & Art Prints
for the music, art, and social studies classrooms, home schoolers, and theme decor for office or home.

Opera is a dramatic theatre art where the story and emotions are expressed through vocal and instrumental music, lyrics, acting, costumes, and scenery.

Phantom of the Opera Posters

"Les Troyens" (The Trojans) is a five act opera by French composer Hector Berlioz based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid, the legendary story of the Trojan Aeneas who travelled to Italy, to become the ancestor of the Romans.

"Boris Godunov", portrait of tenor Feodor Chaliapin, 1916

• composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky portrait
• Feodor Chaliapin photo

La Norma Opera,
Vincenzo Bellini,
Rafal Olbinski

• Vincenzo Bellini poster
• more Rafal Olbinski posters

'Lucia di Lammermoor' (1835) by Gaetano Donizetti, is based on the novel The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott.

Stage Design for Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffman", 1915

• Jacques Offenbach-Day poster

Carmen Opera Posters
George Bizet

"La Gioconda" of 1876 is an example of the Italian genre of Grande opera. It was first performed at Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

There are many recordings as La Gioconda is frequently performed and features a principal role for each of the six major voice types (soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, and bass).

The famous "Mona Lisa" painting of Leonardo da Vinci is also called "La Gioconda".

Isabeau,
Pietro Mascagni-

• Pietro Mascagni, TIME cover

Jules Massenet Opera Posters Index

Esclarmonde, Le Mage, Panurne, Roma, Werther

Puccini Opera Posters Index

La Boheme, Madame Butterfly,
Manon Leslaut, Tosca, Turandot

Die Fledermaus
Johann Strauss-
poster, WPA, 1938
Federal Music Project

• more Strauss posters

Richard Strauss Opera Posters Index

Ariadne Auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier, Salome

Guiseppe Verdi Opera Posters Index

Aida, Falstaff, Rigoletto, La Traviata

Richard Wagner Opera Posters Index

The Ring Cycle, Die Nibelungen: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, Twilight of the Gods (Gotterdannerung); Lohengrin, Meistersinger, Parsifal, Tristan and Isolde, Tannhauser

Sarah Caldwell
b. 3-6-1924; Maryville, MO
d. 3-23-2006; Maine

Sarah Caldwell, impresario and opera conductor, was a child prodigy, giving violin performances at 10 and graduating from high school at 14. The title for the Time cover is Music's Wonder Woman.

• Uncommon Women - Sarah Caldwell
• notable women musicians

In the beginning of the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera, the character Lassparri has just finished performing Pagliacci.

"The Threepenny Opera" stages a socialist view of the capitalist world asking, "Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank or he who founds one?"

The Threepenny Opera is a work by playwright Bertolt Brecht (b. 2-10-1898; Germany - d. 8-14-1956) and composer Kurt Weill (3-2-1900 - 4-3-1950), based on the 1728 play by John Gay (1685-1732), The Beggar's Opera.

Captain Macheath, the Highwayman is the hero of "The Beggar's Opera".

• literature / authors posters

The 1935 George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess is based on a novel by South Carolina author DuBose Heyward, and a play of the same name, cowritten with his wife Dorothy.

Leontyne Price sang the part of Bess, and Maya Angelou performed the part of Ruby, in 1952. Simon Estes sang the part of Porgy in the 1985 Metropolitan staging of the opera. The 1959 film version was edited into a musical rather than an opera.

The most popular song from Porgy and Bess is "Summertime", which has become a jazz standard - Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

• summertime posters (the season)

In the Box -
Mary Cassatt

• Mary Cassatt posters