List of fictional literature featuring opera

This is a list of literary fiction which feature opera in the plot. "Features" excludes fleeting mentions: for a literary work to be on this list opera must be a significant part of the plot, or, alternatively, provide significant context and backdrop.

Author Title Bibliographic information Remarks
Martha AlbrandFinal EncoreNew York: St. Martin's Press, 1978 ISBN 0312289413Alternative title: Intermission
Kingsley AmisThe AlterationLondon: Cape, 1976 ISBN 9780224013055Inspired by Amis's hearing of the castrato Alessandro Moreschi; the lead character is a choir boy who undergoes castration
Oskar Paul Wilhelm AnwandDie Primadonna Friedrichs des GrossenBerlin: R. Bong, 1930Fictionalized account of the love affair between Gertrud Elisabeth Mara and Frederick the Great
Honoré de BalzacGambaraNew York: New York Review Books, 2001 ISBN 9780940322745features an opera by its eponymous composer on the life of Mahomet, as well as a disquisition on Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable
Eva Fanny Bernhardine Turk Baudissin, Grafin vonWilhelmine Schröder-Devrient: der Schicksalsweg einer großen KünstlerinBerlin: Drei Masken Verlag, 1937
Malcolm BradburyRates of ExchangeLondon: Secker & Warburg, 1983 ISBN 9780436065057features the interminable Slakan national opera Vedontakal Vrop, by Z. Leblat
Malcolm BradburyWhy come to Slaka?London: Secker & Warburg, 1986 ISBN 9780436065064again features the interminable Slakan national opera Vedontakal Vrop
Friedrich BruckbräuMittheilungen aus den geheimen Memoiren einer deutschen Sängerin; later issued as Aus den Memoiren einer Sängerin
(Pauline: Memoirs of a Singer; or Promiscuous Pauline; or, The Memoirs of a German Opera Singer)
Stuttgart: Gebrüder Franckh, 1829Purported to be the memoir of the opera singer Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient[1]
Willa CatherThe Song of the LarkBoston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1915Has been described as the first "bildungsroman" with a female protagonist. Thea grows up in a frontier town on the Colorado Plains, studies piano in Chicago, is discovered to have a magnificent voice, is seduced and betrayed, goes to Germany and becomes a great Wagnerian soprano. All the characters somehow reunite at her Met debut in Lohengrin.[2]
Alexander CheeThe Queen of the NightHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016 ISBN 9780618663026A scrappy young girl escapes a traumatic childhood and reinvents herself as a diva soprano in Paris in the late 19th century. She eats dinner with the Verdis, flirts with a heldentenor and hides several secrets.
Francis Marion CrawfordSoprano: a Portrait (U.K. title; published in the U.S. as Fair Margaret: a Portrait)New York, Macmillan, 1905
Francis Marion CrawfordThe PrimadonnaNew York, Macmillan, 1907"A sequel to Fair Margaret"
Francis Marion CrawfordThe Diva's RubyNew York, Macmillan, 1908"A sequel to Primadonna and Fair Margaret"
Mary DaheimBantam of the OperaNew York: Avon Books, 1993 ISBN 9780380769346When obnoxious opera star Mario Pacetti and his entourage come to stay at her Hillside Manor and Mario is killed by poison, bed-and-breakfast hostess Judith McMonigle sets out to find the murderer and save her inn's reputation (publishers' summary)
Marcia DavenportOf Lena GeyerNew York: Scribner, 1936Lenzka Gyruzkova, a Czech immigrant to New York City, is protected and taught by an Italian vocal coach whom she had once met in Prague, goes back to Europe for lessons with Lilli Lehmann, and becomes a sensation in opera houses all over the world, singing Mozart and Verdi and Wagner—especially Wagner—with equal success. There are adventures off-stage, but she stays true to her singing.

From 1968 to 1977, model and actress Nell Theobald obsessively stalked soprano Birgit Nilsson around the world, fashioned after elements in this book.[3]

Michael DibdinCosi Fan TuttiLondon, Faber and Faber, 1997 ISBN 0571179207Inspector Aurelio Zen uncovers a plot in Naples, where he is sidetracked by a woman who disapproves of her daughters' boyfriends and hopes to distract the boys with alternate girlfriends. The plot of Mozart's opera reworked.[2]
Klemens DiezConstanze – gewesene Witwe Mozart translated as: Constanze, formerly widow of Mozart: her unwritten memoir Wien: Österreichische Verlagsanstalt, A. Schroll, 1982 ISBN 9783852020792
Fortuné du BoisgobeyLe crime de l'opera translated as: The Crime of the Opera HouseParis, E. Plon et cie, 1880
George du MaurierTrilbyPublished serially in Harper's Monthly in 1894; published in book form in 1895
Diane DuaneThe Book of Night with MoonNew York: Warner Books, 1997 ISBN 0446673021One of the characters is Urruah, a dumpster-living, foodie tomcat with a yen for opera
Jane DuncanMy friends from CairntonNew York: St. Martin's Press, 1964
Dorothy Dunnett‘‘Dolly and the singing bird’‘[4][5] (originally published as ‘‘The photogenic soprano’‘ (1968),[6] later as ‘‘Rum Affair’‘ (1991)[7])
Erich EbermayerDie goldene StimmeHamburg: P. Zsolnay, 1958
Anne EdwardsLa DivinaNew York: W. Morrow and Co., 1994 ISBN 9780688088361Athena Varos rose to become a great opera diva during the 1930s and 40s, while her private life came to resemble one of her operas"[2]
George EliotDaniel DerondaNew York: Oxford University Press, 1984 ISBN 9780198125570
Dominique FernandezPorporino, ou, Les mystères de Naples translated as: Porporino, or The Secret of NaplesNew York: Morrow, 1976 ISBN 9780688030582
Kurt Arnold FindeisenFlügel der MorgenröteBerlin: Verlag der Nation, 1956
Gustave FlaubertMadame BovaryNew York: Viking, 2010 ISBN 9780670022076First published in 1856
E. M. ForsterWhere Angels Fear to TreadNew York: Vintage Books, 1992 ISBN 9780679736349First published in 1920
Phil Foglio, Kaja FoglioAgatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones (Girl Genius Volume 8)Airship Entertainment, 2009 ISBN 9781890856472Volume 8 of the Girl Genius comic opens with author avatar Professoressa Foglio giving readers a 2-page recap of the first act of a fictional opera, or a story within a story: Portentius Reichenbach's "The Storm King." The opera is a highly dramatized account of historic events from the comic, providing background information on the current political situation. It also provides exposition on the activities of the ancestors of several main and secondary characters.[8] [9]
Jessie FothergillThe First ViolinNew York: H. Holt and Company, 1878
Arnaldo FraccaroliBelliniMilano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1942
Arnaldo FraccaroliDonizettiMilano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1945
Don Freeman and Lydia FreemanPet of the MetNew York: Puffin Books, 1988 ISBN 9780140508925First published in 1953; "A mouse who works as a page turner at the Metropolitan Opera House has only one enemy, a cat; but, during a performance of The Magic Flute, something magical happens to change their lives."[2]
Nancy FreedmanPrima DonnaNew York: William Morrow, 1981 ISBN 9780688037307
Matthew GallawayThe Metropolis CaseNew York: Crown Publishers, 2010 ISBN 9780307463425"From the smoky music halls of 1860s Paris to the tumbling skyscrapers of twenty-first-century New York, a sweeping tale of passion, music, and the human heart's yearning for connection. An unlikely quartet is bound together across centuries and continents by the strange and spectacular history of Richard Wagner's masterpiece opera Tristan and Isolde."[2]
John GanoDeath at the OperaLondon: Macmillan, 1995 ISBN 9780333629628"A tour of the stately homes of England by the Floria Tosca Grand Opera Company is rudely interrupted by several murders, including the death of one of its sponsors. In view of the amorous intrigues and professional backstabbing, police have a hard time figuring out what's what."[2]
Thomas Godfrey (ed)Murder at the Opera: a collection of eleven murder mysteriesNew York: Mysterious Press, 1989 ISBN 9780892963799Includes: Addio, San Francisco by 'Albert Herring'; Swan song by Agatha Christie; A matter of mean elevation by O. Henry; Mom sings an aria by James Yaffe; The affair at the Semiramis Hotel by A.E.W. Mason; Death by enthusiasm by Hector Berlioz; The gun with wings by Rex Stout; Murder at the opera by Vincent Starrett; Melody in death by Baynard Kendrick; The Ptomaine canary by Helen Traubel; The spy who went to the opera by Edward D. Hoch
Elizabeth Caroline GreyThe Young Prima Donna: a romance of the operaLondon: Bentley, 1840
Elizabeth Caroline GreyThe Opera-Singers WifeLondon: Charles H. Clarke, 1855
Josef HaslingerOpernballFrankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1995; ISBN 9783596135912
William James HendersonThe Soul of a Tenor: a RomanceNew York: Henry Holt and Co., 1912
Tom HoltExpecting Someone TallerNew York: St. Martin's Press, 1987 ISBN 9780312014261A meek young Englishman enters the world of Wagnerian myth when he inherits a helmet which allows him to understand the speech of birds and animals, and a ring which supplies him with endless amounts of gold and makes him the ruler of the world.[2]
Tom HoltFlying DutchNew York: St. Martin's Press, 1992 ISBN 9780312069759The actual Flying Dutchman (from Wagner's opera) and his crew accidentally drank an alchemists' elixir. The reason they can only come ashore every seven years is their stench is too great for land people to endure. But they must be found because they bought life insurance back in 1596, and the whole world owes them money. IF they die. [2]
Ottokar JanetschekDie Primadonna: ein MozartromanWien: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1956
Susan KayPhantomNew York: Delacorte Press, 1991 ISBN 9780385302968A recreation of the life of the Phantom of the Opera unmasks the Paris Opera House inhabitant, telling how he was born disfigured and how he became a side-show freak, stonemason's apprentice, and eventually the masked man in search of love.[2]
Gustav KobbéSignora, a child of the opera houseNew York: R.H. Russell, 1902
Zdenko von KraftAbend in BayreuthBerlin: Hyperion-Verlag, 1943
Zdenko von KraftWelt und Wahn, Barrikaden, Liebestod, Wahnfried: ein Richard-Wagner-RomanHeidelberg: Keysersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1954
Max KronbergFeuerzauber: ein Lebens-Roman Richard WagnersLeipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1932
Max KronbergKonig und Kunstler: Roman Konig Ludwigs II. und Richard WagnerLeipzig: Otto Janke, 1937
Max KronbergDer Sieg der Melodie: ein Puccini-Caruso-RomanLeipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1935
Joachim KupschEin Ende in Dresden: ein Richard-Wagner-RomanBerlin: Henschel, 1964
Lilian Lee (Pi-hua Li)Farewell To My Concubine (Pa-wang pieh Chi)New York: William Morrow, 1993 ISBN 9780688120207Farewell to My Concubine is a story of jealousy and passion set against the exhilarating spectacle of the Peking opera. One of the most unusual epic romances of all time, the novel moves swiftly from the decadent glamour of 1930s China through the horrors of the Japanese occupation right up to Hong Kong in the 1980s. This riveting and sensual story could only have come from the pen of Lilian Lee, one of the Chinese reading world's most beloved and best-selling authors....[2]
Donna LeonDeath at La FeniceNew York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992 ISBN 9780060168711
Gaston LerouxLe Fantôme de l'Opéra translated as The Phantom of the OperaParis, P. Lafitte & cie, 1910
Charlotte MacLeodThe Plain Old ManGarden City, N.Y.: Published for the Crime Club by Doubleday, 1985 ISBN 9780385230032When she gets involved in her Aunt Emma's production of "The Sorcerer" by Gilbert and Sullivan, Sarah Kelling Bittersohn doesn't expect it to lead to art theft and murder.[2]
Klaus MannVergittertes fenster: novelle um den tod des königs Ludwig II. von Bayern' Amsterdam: Querido verlag n.v., 1937
Thomas MannTristan
Thomas MannWälsungenblut (The Blood of the Wälsungs)München: Phantasus-Verlag, 1921
Queena MarioMurder in the Opera HouseNew York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1934
Ngaio MarshPhoto FinishBoston: Little, Brown, 1980 ISBN 9780316546805Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, C.I.D., Scotland Yard, must identify "Strix" (a dangerous shutterbug) among the assemblage of luminaries gathered at the New Zealand hideaway of the opera star La Sommita's wealthy patron.[2]
James McCourtMawrdew CzgowchwzNew York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975 ISBN 9780374204617"Diva Mawrdew Czgowchwz bursts like the most brilliant of comets onto the international opera scene, only to confront the deadly malice and black magic of her rivals.[2]
Ethan MorddenThe Venice AdrianaNew York: St. Martin's Press, 1998 ISBN 9780312182021American Mark Trigger travels to 1960s Venice to write a biography of Adriana Grafanas, a famous opera singer, and is drawn into her world—a film director courts her for a movie, a princess tries to steal her man. In the process Trigger discovers his passion—for men.[2]
Hans Nowak and Georg ZivierVerdi, oder Die Macht des SchicksalsBerlin, Keil Verlag, 1938Later issued as Die Macht des Schicksals, ein Verdi-Roman
Ann PatchettBel CantoNew York: Perennial, HarperCollins, 2001 ISBN 0060934417Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of a visiting Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening, until the lights go out.

This book was adapted into an opera that had its premiere in Chicago in 2015.

Barbara PaulA Cadenza for CarusoNew York: St. Martin's Press, 1984 ISBN 9780312113285Murder stalks the Met. Puccini has been black-mailed and Toscanini is acting strangely. Can Enrico Caruso solve the mystery?[2]
Ellis PetersThe House of Green TurfLondon: Published for the Crime Club by Collins, 1969 ISBN 9780002313032A famous singer wakes up in hospital after a car crash, haunted by the certainty that she has been responsible for a death at some time in the past. She hires a private investigator, who launches a hunt across Europe with the trail leading to Felse's wife, Bunty.[2]
Terry PratchettMaskeradeLondon: Victor Gollancz, 1995 ISBN 0575058080There are strange goings-on at the Opera House in Ankh-Morpork, with murders you can hum, in this 18th Discworld novel.
Henry Handel RichardsonThe Young Cosima, a novelNew York: W. W. Norton, 1939Twelve years in the life of the daughter of Franz Liszt (Cosima Wagner).[2]
Hermann RichterDas wilde Herz: Lebensroman der Wilhelmine Schröder-DevrientLeipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1927
Blanche RooseveltStage-struck; or, She would be an opera-singerNew York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert; London, Sampson Low & Co., 1884
Kate RossThe Devil in MusicNew York: Viking, 1997 ISBN 9780670863594The sleuthing 19th century English dandy, Julian Kestrel, is in Milan searching for the killer of a famous marquis. The marquis was a patron of the opera and the probe takes place against the background of goings-on at La Scala.[2]
Pitts SanbornPrima Donna, a novel of the operaNew York: Longmans, Green, 1929
Phillip ScottOne Dead DivaLos Angeles: Alyson Books, 1995 ISBN 9781555837594Marc, a 50-ish accident-prone opera queen, and Paul, a ditsy chorus boy addicted to dance parties, are an odd pairing as friends. As detectives they are even more unlikely. Still, they decide to investigate the mysterious death of Sydney's hottest new operatic talent, Jennifer Burke—a death the authorities have deemed a suicide. Hot on the trail of clues that lead to all the wrong answers, our energetically inefficient sleuths investigate a slew of highly suspicious characters—including a sharp-tongued music critic, a past-it prima donna, and a formidable drag artiste—before accidentally stumbling over the truth.[2]
Albéric SecondLes petits mystères de l'OperaParis: G. Kugelmann, 1844
Alphons SilbermannDas imaginäre Tagebuch des Herrn Jacques OffenbachBerlin: Bote & Bock, 1960
Susannah StaceyA Knife At The OperaNew York: Summit Books, 1988 ISBN 9780671657802Backstage at the Turnbridge Wells girls' school production of The Beggar's Opera, all was bedlam. Miss Claire Fairlie, the pretty English teacher, was found with a knife plunged into her back. Superintendent Robert Bone was in the audience, and as he dug deeper in the case, he discovered there was a lot more to Miss Fairlie than met the eye.[2]
Frank ThiessCaruso: Roman einer StimmeHamburg: Krüger, 1946
Leo TolstoyWar and PeaceNew York: T.Y. Crowell & Co., 1889First published in 1869
Leo TolstoyAnna KareninaNew York: T.Y. Crowell & Co., 1886First published in 1878. A performance of Lucia di Lammermoor is a pivotal event[10]
Helen TraubelThe Metropolitan Opera MurdersNew York: Simon and Schuster, 1951
Roland VernonThe Maestro's VoiceLondon: Black Swan, 2010 ISBN 0552775525New York: Rocco Campobello, the great tenor–-one of the most revered entertainers in the world–-collapses on stage. He emerges from this brush with death a changed man: a fallen, but enlightened colossus.[2]
Franz WerfelVerdi. Roman der Oper (Verdi: A Novel of the OperaBerlin: Paul Zsolnay, 1924Verdi goes to Venice during Carnival of 1882/83, only to discover the city haunted by his great rival, Wagner. Will they confront one another? [2]

References

  1. Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung (1829) F. A. Brockhaus, pp. 1000, 1196 (announcement);
    Mittheilungen aus den geheimen Memoiren einer deutschen Sängerin, text at zeno.org;
    Reprint
  2. Publisher's summary
  3. Ralph Blumenthal (May 21, 2006). "Soprano's Tale: Obsession, Love and Death. Offstage". The New York Times. Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  4. Dunnett, Dorothy (2012) [1968]. Rum Affair. House of Stratus. pp. Back cover. ISBN 0755119134. Retrieved 29 April 2014. This mystery is narrated by "The Bird": Tina Rossi, a famous coloratura soprano who arrives to sing at the Edinburgh Festival, only to find a murder victim in a cupboard ...
  5. Worldcat record for ‘‘Dolly and the singing bird’‘
  6. Worldcat record for ‘‘The photogenic soprano’‘
  7. Worldcat record for ‘‘Rum Affair’‘
  8. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080204
  9. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080206
  10. Polhemus, Robert M. (1990). Erotic Faith: Being in Love from Jane Austen to D. H. Lawrence. University of Chicago Press. p. 55. ISBN 0226673227.
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