Seven Favorite Operatic Moments in Popular Films

In my years of movie-going I have been well cajoled by cinematically apt use of opera in films. No matter how persistent the myth of opera being a dying art-form is, its continue usage in hip movies and television shows and ads testify otherwise. What is not to like about having already good scenes intensify to transcendence by the judicious use of operatically dramatic music? Here are just seven of the many such examples I enjoy at the cinema:

1. Pretty Woman (bits from Verdi's La Traviata): 1990. Directed by Garry Marshall. Rich and handsome Edward (Richard Gere) chances upon spunky prostitute, Vivian (Julia Roberts) while attempting to drive a borrowed stick-shift car through Los Angeles' Beverly Hills neighborhood. He makes a proposition that keeps on getting extended in ways neither of them originally expected. It is a beautiful rendition of the timeless Cinderella plot, albeit with a much happier ending than that of La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) the opera that Edward whisked Vivian off in his private jet to see at San Francisco's War Memorial Theater. In it Violetta the glamorous courtesan falls in love with not-all-that-well-off Alfredo, and ends up losing everything in the name of love. While the plots are dissimilar in many ways, they still share one essential point in the unexpected virtues expressed by women not normally regarded by society as prone to having an abundant supply of.

2. The Fifth Element (Il dolce suono from the mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor): The 1997 cult hit by Luc Besson has a rather convoluted plot. I think it basically says 'love conquers all' in the end, but how it says that is convoluted to the operatic proportion - which, of course, makes its use of a maddest bit of a really logically mushy (even among many logically mushy operatic plots) opera as wholesome as ginger spiced apple pie served on a turbo powered flying tray. With the destruction of the earth looming in the 2263 horizon Diva Plavalaguna, a petite acid blue electro-soprano enchants the crowded auditorium with an operatic aria of sorrow that morphs into well choreographed butt-kicking dance mix (click here for sample clip). And, in case you are curious about it, the original opera where the bit came from is every bit as mad... Though perhaps in a more subtle manner.

3. The Hunger (Dome épais (Flower Duet) from Delibes' Lakmé): 1983 by Tony Scott. Doctor Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon) drops in to check on her patient and ends up seduced by Miriam (Catherine Deneuve), his ageless wife who serves her a superb glass of cherry and serenades her from the piano with Leo Delibes' most memorable duet from the opera Lakmé. Never mind the preposterous plot and the presence of David Bowie in the leading cast, the sultriness of the seduction scene by itself earned the movie a resilient group of fans and a very secure status as a lesbian cult film icon.

4. The Shawshank Redemption (Letter Duet 'Sull'aria' from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro): It is hard to believe that Frank Darabont's 1994 film adaptation of Stephen King's short story enjoyed only dubious success at the box office. Among its flowingly coherent string of great scenes is one where (wrongly) convicted Andy Dufresne celebrates his successful request for funding of a prison library by locking himself in the humorless warden's office and playing one of the sublime of operatic duets on the complex's intercom system.

5. Life is Beautiful (Barcarolle from Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann): Roberto Benigni's 1998 holocaust classic has all the surreally humorous drama to blend with a gorgeous musically psychedelic bit from the equally surreal in a rather different manner Offenbach opera. As others around him are absorbed in the performance of The Tales of Hoffmann at the opera house, Guido (Benigni) has spotted his future wife up in the balcony and tries to will her into making eye contact with him.

6. Philadelphia (La mamma morta from Giordano's André Chenier): Jonathan Demme's Academy award winning film about the firing and the trial of a Philadelphia lawyer, Andrew Beckett (Tom Hank), who is dying of AIDS has its most dramatically searing scene derived straight out of an opera: "This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is "Andrea Chenier", Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She's saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died... saving her. "Look, the place that cradled me is burning." Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that'll change again. Listen... listen..."I bring sorrow to those who love me." Oh, that single cello! "It was during this sorrow that love came to me." A voice filled with harmony. It says, "Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god... that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love!... I am love."

7. Apocalypse Now (Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner's The Valkyrie): Oliver Stone's 1979 iconic Vietname War epic makes perhaps the most unforgettable use of operatic music in cinematic history in its famous helicopter attack scene (apparently Liongate film is not keen on having the film clip shown on you tube, so you'll just have to picture a fleet of attack helicopters flying to this scintillating tune). The Valkyries in Norse and German mythology are supernatural maidens who prowl battle fields to deliver the soul of the heroic dead to the chief god Odin. It is said that the reflection of their shiny armor as they ride their celestial horses across the sky is manifested to the naked eyes as the aurora borealis (northern light). And if any earthly music can adequately describe such divine horsemanship, it is this most popular of operatic music from Wagner's Ring Cycle.

There are many more beautiful use of opera music in films, of course. And a lot of non-opera fans are more familiar with more opera tunes than they realize. Also worth mentioning here are two very successful films that make use of substantial opera footage in their story: Milos Forman's 1984 adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus and Gerard Corbiau's 1994 Farinell: Il Castrato.

Sources:
- IMDb Memorable Quote from Philadelphia
- Donna Bartholomew. Aurora Gets Wagnerian Tint at Griffith Observatory. The Daily News 24 April 2010.