How to Pretend to Be an Opera Buff

It’s a well-known fact that the single best way to be incredibly cool is to have an encyclopedic knowledge of opera. In other words, to be an opera buff. But what if you can’t devote the enormous amounts of time and energy needed to achieve this exulted status?

Imagine the following scenario. You are watching Jeopardy with your friends. One of the categories is ‘Opera.’ The first clue is, “This 1904 Puccini Opera Is Set In Nagasaki”. You reply “What is Madama Butterfly?”, and you are right. Your friends are impressed.

The next clue is, “Charles Gounod’s opera adaptation features this title character making a bargain with Mephistopheles.” You reply, “Who is Faust?”, and again you are right. Your friends are stunned.

A third clue says, “In the third act of this Verdi opera, Dr. Grenvil tells Violetta she doesn’t have long to live”. When you correctly reply, “What is La Traviata?”, you become a legend.

In your friends’ eyes, you stride the narrow world like a colossus. You are an opera buff (compared to them.) They don’t notice that you didn’t know the correct response to several of the other opera clues. No, all they remember is that they didn’t have the tiniest idea about any of the responses, and you knew some. It is enough. You have arrived at transcendent coolness.

How then, you ask, can I achieve even this relative buffness? That’s an easy one. Go to www.bzzwords.com. Click on Bzzwords University. Click on Trivia Training. Choose the “Opera” topic from the drop-down menu. Click on the Drill button. Keep answering questions until you get a lot of them right. Then go do something else and come back later to drill again, over and over until you stop forgetting. Don’t try to memorize. Just keeping guessing and eventually the right answers will be there.

That’s it. Soon, you will be able to answer enough trivia questions to convince opera ignoramuses, which is almost everyone, that you are a buff.

So what do you need to know about opera from a trivia training point of view? Know the most commonly performed operas, including La Traviata, Carmen, The Magic Flute, La Bohème, Tosca, The Barber of Seville, Aida, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, Hansel and Gretel, and Madama Butterfly.

Know that Verdi composed a ton of operas from 1839 to 1893. Puccini composed gobs between 1884 to 1926. If you don’t know the composer of an opera, one of those two guys is a good guess, and if you know the date of the premiere, you can usually narrow it down to which one.

Be able to identify the title of the opera from a plot summary. Know the composer of the opera, and the setting. Unlike Shakespeare plays, where you might be asked the name of any character, you only need to know the names of major characters, usually a protagonist and a love interest.

So that’s it. Go become a relative opera buff at Bzzwords University.

June 15, 2025

Shakespeare Plays

How many plays did Shakespeare write? The Encyclopedia Brittanica says about 37. Other sources say about 38. Why “about”? Apparently, after 400 years, you kind of have to dig around to figure out who wrote what and how much of it. There are multiple versions of almost everything from back then floating around, and you can’t be completely sure which ones are his work with some revision by other authors, and which ones are works by other authors with some revisions by him. The discrepancy between 37 and 38 seems to center around whether or not “Two Noble Kinsmen”, which Shakespeare is believed to have written with a coauthor named John Fletcher, should be considered a Shakespeare play.

We don’t care though. If it’s a famous play commonly attributed to Shakespeare, there’s going to be trivia questions about it.

So from a trivia training perspective, what do you need to know about Shakespeare’s plays? Everything. Every setting, every plot, every named character. For Jeopardy anyway. For lesser shows, you might get away with just knowing that Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet.

Casual trivia competition will probably concentrate on just the most famous plays, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. Elite shows like Jeopardy and the Chase will cover these, but tend to concentrate on Shakespeare’s second-tier titles, Othello, King Lear, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There will also be questions about The Merchant of Venice and As You Like it. Even more obscure plays might generate a question if they contain a famous quote, such as “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse,” in Richard III.

Here’s a tip. If you are asked for the name of a secondary character from a Shakespeare play, and you have no idea what it is, guess, “Antonio.” Half of the guys in Shakespeare’s plays are named “Antonio.” Okay, it may just seem like it.

For some reason, I have seen more questions about King Lear’s daughters recently than anything else to do with Shakespeare. Their names are Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Remember those names. Cordelia is the good one.

You can use “drill” mode at Bzzword University Trivia Training to gently pound these names, and a lot of other very useful facts, into your memory.

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May 25, 2025

What Should You Know About the NBA Hall of Fame?

The first thing you need to know about the NBA Hall of Fame is that there isn’t one. Nope. Doesn’t exist. So where are all these NBA players who are inducted into the hall of fame going? That would be the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, which honors any significant contributor to the sport of basketball, players and coaches, men and women, professional and amateur, U.S. and international.

So when we at Bzzwords University say, “the NBA Hall of Fame,” we are of course referring the NBA players that have been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, or at least to a curated subset of that group.

Sports trivia competitions would go into great detail about things like stats and league records and who beat who in the finals in what year. However, that’s not the kind of sports question you’d be likely to encounter on a general knowledge trivia show such as Jeopardy or Master Minds or the Chase.

So for general knowledge trivia competition purposes, what do you need to know about NBA hall of fame players?

Know the twenty or so historically great NBA players and what teams they played for. Examples: Larry Bird played for the Boston Celtics his entire career, Tim Duncan for the San Antonio Spurs, Isiah Thomas for the Detroit Pistons. Shaquille O’Neal played for six different NBA teams.

Know who they played for in college, if they did. Examples: Charles Barkley played for Auburn, Magic Johnson for Michigan State, Shaquille O’Neal for LSU, Larry Bird for Indiana State. Kobe Bryant went to the NBA straight from high school.

Know their nicknames. Examples: Oscar Robertson was “the Big O.” Jerry West was “Mr. Clutch.” Julius Erving was “Dr. J.” Kobe Bryant gave himself the nickname, “Black Mamba.” I doubt Charles Barkley gave himself the nickname, “Round Mound of Rebound.”

Know the most unique facts and accomplishments of the players. Examples: Wilt Chamberlain is the only player to score more than a hundred points in one game. Dirk Nowitzki, from Germany, was the first European superstar in the NBA. The NBA logo is the silhouette of Jerry West.

The most important basketball fact of all time, the most important nugget of information in all of sports of all time from a trivia point of view, more important than all other facts combined, is that the NBA logo is the silhouette of Jerry West. If you can’t learn anything else, learn that.

What about LeBron James, you ask? What about Steph Curry? Don’t worry about them. They aren’t retired yet, so they aren’t in the hall of fame. Questions about current players aren’t as likely on the gold standard trivia shows mentioned above. Once you’ve gathered the low-hanging fruit of NBA hall of fame player facts, move on to the Byzantine Empire.

Learn everything on Bzzwords University Trivia Training.

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May 2, 2025