Abstract: (Postcards of opera, intruments of diffusion of the melodrama at the time of the opera) Throughout the nineteenth century, up to the 30s of the twentieth century, the fruitful Italian opera production had a huge spread throughout the national territory through different channels. The main of these can certainly be identified in the dense network of theaters, magnificent temples of melodrama, assiduously frequented by a loyal, passionate and competent public. On the territory where there was no “temple” of the lyric, the musical bands, with amazing arrangements of the most beautiful pieces, reached all social groups, by performing band concerts in practically every town in Italy, participating in numerous band competitions organized on the national territory, offering the band masters opportunities to try their hand at transpositions of entire operas only for wind instruments. Beyond the bands, finally, the “postcards of Opera”, telling in a few significant sequences, with masterful synthesis, the plots of the melodramas of the entire lyrical repertoire, traveled far and wide, from north to south, in the Peninsula, offering to the Italians the stories of the protagonists of the lyrical works that, like in a mirror, reflected passions and desires, joys and sorrows, successes and disappointments.