OPERA 101: Opera you didn’t know you already love

The more I learn about opera, and become immersed in this world, the more I realize opera is everywhere. You may think you don’t know anything about this art form, that you don’t like opera, that it’s stuffy and boring and for gray haired old ladies – but several Hollywood directors would disagree with you. If Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Elvis think opera is cool, I can get on board too.

1. The Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen

Carmen is one of the most performed operas in North America and the Habanera has been performed and recreated in everything from Disney cartoons to Walmart commercials.

The original: Maria Calla sings the Habanera

Movies you’ve heard it in: Trainspotting, Pixar’s UP, Hudsucker Proxy

2. Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner’s Ring Cycle

Ride of the Valkyries is perhaps Richard Wagner’s most famous piece (that’s VAG-ner, not WAG-ner). It was composed as part of four epic operas called Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or more often Wagner’s Ring Cycle) which took twenty-six years to write. And by epic, I mean EPIC: the four operas, generally performed over four nights, have a total playing time of about 15 hours.

Opera misconception: Many people believe the Ring Cycle inspired J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. While the two were inspired by the same Old Norse mythologies, Tolkien has once said, “Both rings are round, and there the resemblance ceases.”

The original: Ride of the Valkyries

Movies you’ve heard it in: Apocalypse Now, The Blues Brothers, Full Metal Jacket, What’s Opera, Doc?

3. Barcarolle from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann

The Tales of Hoffmann, written by Jacques Offenbach, is based on the short storied of writer E.T.A. Hoffmann and the Barcarolle is the most famous aria in the opera.

Fun Fact: Barcarolle provided the tune for Elvis’s Tonight Is So Right For Love in G.I. Blues.

The Original: Barcarolle

Movies you’ve heard it in: Life is Beautiful, Titanic

4. Flower Duet in Delibes’ Lakme

Lakme duet is always used to evoke beauty and tranquility, although sometimes overlayed as a foil for violence like in Tomb Raider. Listen closely while you are watching TV and youll hear it helping sell you some of your favorite products. Its ubiquitous presence in films and popular music since the mid-1980s was inaugurated by its usage in the 1983 horror film The Hunger.

The original: The Flower Duet

Movies you’ve heard it in: Meet the Parents, The American President, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, The Hunger

5. Sull’aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa (comic opera) – not to be confused with The Barber of Seville and the aria Largo al factotum – was originally banned in Vienna because of it’s satire of the aristocracy, but later became one of Mozart’s most successful works.

The original: Cecilia Bartoli and Renee Fleming

Movies you’ve heard it in: The Shawshank Redemption

Join us in March for Opera Goes to the Movies as movies and opera meld.