All Collections
Operamulti
Operas Set in Real Cities
Seven operas whose settings are as specific as their characters
5 selections · Stage Door Society Editorial
Place as Protagonist
Most operas set themselves in mythological kingdoms or conveniently ambiguous courts. The operas in this collection make a different choice: they anchor their stories in specific, named, historically identifiable cities. And in doing so they give the drama a particular kind of weight.
La Bohème's Paris
Puccini's Montmartre is the most convincingly realized cityscape in all of opera. Act II — set in the Café Momus in the Latin Quarter on Christmas Eve — places its private story of love and consumption within a public space of specific historical texture. You hear the city around the characters.
Tosca's Rome
The three acts of Tosca are set in three of Rome's most specific landmarks: the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, the Palazzo Farnese, the Castel Sant'Angelo. Puccini researched the church bells he needed for Act III. The Rome of Tosca is not a backdrop — it is a character with its own weight.
Nixon in China
John Adams and Alice Goodman's 1987 opera about Nixon's 1972 visit to China is one of the most successful operas about contemporary history. Beijing becomes a stage of ideological spectacle.
