The Opera mate is a checkmate where a rook attacks the king on its back rank and a bishop protects the rook from a distance, so the king cannot capture it. It often ends a king hunt in the centre after the defender's last guard has been lured away. Every puzzle on this page ends in an Opera mate, comes from a real game and is close to your puzzle rating. Solving them moves the same rating as Puzzle Training.
The rook lands on the square right next to the king on the back rank, which would normally let the king take it. The bishop, standing far away on a diagonal that ends on that square, makes the capture illegal. The rook's file and rank take away some flight squares, the bishop's diagonal often takes one more, and the king's own pieces fill whatever is left.
It differs from a plain back rank mate in two ways. The rook checks from right beside the king rather than from along the rank, so it needs protection. And the king is usually trapped by its own pieces and the bishop, not only by its pawn shield.
Black's king is still on e8, with a bishop on f8, a pawn on f7 and a knight on d7. White has a queen on b3, a rook on d1 and a bishop on g5. White plays 1.Qb8+. The queen checks along the back rank, and the knight on d7 is the only piece that can deal with it, so 1...Nxb8 is Black's only legal move. That clears the d-file, and 2.Rd8 is checkmate.
Look at what the bishop on g5 does. It protects the rook on d8 along the diagonal through f6 and e7, and it also covers e7 itself. The rook covers d7. Black's own bishop and pawn fill f8 and f7. Move White's bishop from g5 back to f1 and the idea collapses: after 1.Qb8+ the king can step to e7, and after 1...Nxb8 2.Rd8+ it can simply take the rook.
The typical setting is a king that has not castled, an open d-file, and a knight on d7 that is the only thing between the rook and the back rank. The attacker removes that knight, often with a queen sacrifice as in the example, and the rook drops in. The same shape appears next to a castled king too: a rook on the back rank or the edge file beside the king, protected by a bishop from the far side of the board.
It is one of the more common named mates among the puzzles, because it grows naturally out of open files and active bishops.
Castle before files open in front of your king. If you cannot, make sure the square next to your king on the back rank is guarded by more than one piece. A single knight on d7 that both blocks the file and defends the back rank is overloaded, and a queen sacrifice that deflects it is the standard way to exploit that. Trading off or blocking the enemy bishop that points at your back rank removes the rook's protection.
The first is playing the rook check before the last defender is gone, so the rook is simply captured. The second is not noticing that the bishop's diagonal must stay open all the way to the rook's square; a piece standing on e7 or f6 in the example would block it. If you are stuck, the hint shows which piece to move first, then the move. After you solve, the full line appears beside the board.
The Opera mate is a close cousin of Pillsbury's mate, where the rook also mates but the bishop covers a flight square instead of guarding the rook. Train them together, along with mate in 2 puzzles. For mixed tactics at your level, use Puzzle Training; for speed, Puzzle Storm; and for repetition of a fixed set, the Woodpecker Method. Elo Maxing rates you on every tactical motif and serves the weakest next, and Pattern Drill builds practice from the patterns your own games show you miss. For more on training by repetition, read the Woodpecker Method guide.
A checkmate where a rook attacks the king on its back rank from an adjacent square, and a bishop protects the rook from a distance so the king cannot capture it.
In a back rank mate the rook or queen can check from anywhere on the rank. In the Opera mate the rook stands right next to the king and needs the bishop to protect it.
The sacrifice deflects the last defender of the back rank, usually a knight, and opens the file for the rook.
Castle early, avoid relying on a single piece to guard your back rank, and deal with enemy bishops aimed at the squares next to your king.