Tristan transcriptions for violin, piano, and orchestra.
Jeanette MacDonald singing in her movies got the ball rolling for my lifelong interest in opera.
Greta Garbo as diva Rita Cavallini with an Italo-Swedish accent.
I love the use of the Liebestod at the end of Romeo + Juliet. It’s such a lush, romantic way to end the movie. The most Baz Lurhmann thing ever.
Impossible to pick any one film clip, but it’s hard to imagine a more evocative use of operatic music than Lars von Trier‘s Melancholia.
I think Babette’s Feast is a more or less perfect film and has been my favorite since the first time I saw it.
The thing that inspires me about Pavarotti’s performance here is that this is the piece within the opera that everyone in the audience is waiting to hear.
Anna Paquin cries at the opera to the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffmann (Renée Fleming and Susan Graham)
One of the most striking uses of opera in television appears in HBO’s The Leftovers.
I’m cheating by choosing TV over a movie, but I can’t not pick the Hamlet episode of Gilligan’s Island.
It’s a total fraud, but I have always loved Maytime‘s “Csaritza” a fake “MGM” opera based on themes from Tchaikovsky‘s 5th symphony.
A brutal, chilling, gory final scene leading to a triumphant and goose bumps inducing final moments.
“Ebben, ne andro lontana” sung by Wihelmenia Wiggins Fernandez in Diva is a gorgeous woman in a beautiful dress singing a wonderful area in a legitimate concert venue. Great singing in my favorite French film.
Watching Fitzcarraldo at a very young age obviously turned me into a baby opera queen.
Max Ophuls, one of the greatest film directors, made masterpieces in French, German, English and Italian, as well as an amusing comedy in Dutch; he also clearly loved opera.
The terzettino from Così fan tutte makes an unexpected and unforgettable appearance in John Schlesinger‘s 1971 Sunday Bloody Sunday.
As opera and operetta “had a moment” in major Hollywood motion pictures starring the likes of Lawrence Tibbett, Jeannette MacDonald, and Nelson Eddy during the Great Depression, it made perfect sense that a canny showman like Mae West would want a piece of the action.
Visconti’s masterpiece and one of the great filmed sequences of opera.
After seeing The Fifth Element I wanted to see Inva Mula live, which I did (Nanetta, two years after the movie) and she certainly did not disappoint!
One of the most moving scenes in film, accompanied by Callas‘s iconic singing.
Sofia Coppola‘s cult classic Marie Antoinette is best known for blending a whimsically baroque visuals with a post-punk score.
As a beginning freshman in college at CSU Long Beach, I was cast in my first opera – the chorus for L’Elisir d’amore ( performed in English as “The Elixir of Love”).
This early performance of Anna Bolena’s final scene is just one of the most poised and magical pieces of bel canto singing I’ve ever heard. It must have been extraordinary to hear her at the outset of her career.
Pavarotti in his prime – He makes this so-familiar aria new and glowing.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
