It is a common saying that a film is only as good as its soundtrack. Among the most celebrated musical pieces in American film and television, those associated with the story’s antagonist often stand out. From Darth Vader’s imposing “Imperial March” in The Empire Strikes Back to countless Machiavellian numbers sung by Disney villains such as The Lion King’s Scar or The Little Mermaid’s Ursula, cinematic evil provides no shortage of iconic musical moments. The same can be said of opera.
Centuries before the invention of the moving image, the genre had already combined visual with aural entertainment and storytelling to great success. Like film, opera is also known for the memorable music performed by its villainous characters, including acclaimed arias such as Iago’s “Credo in un Dio crudel” in Verdi’s Otello or the Queen of the Night’s “Der Hölle Rache” in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Here, we show how the two forms overlap in American film and TV through the trope of the intellectual nemesis; we draw parallels to US perceptions of European sophistication and cultural prestige; and we explore the phenomenon’s connections to the modern reception of opera.
Western Art Music and Opera in Film
Among the earliest examples of Western art music in film, Hans Beckert – the serial killer in Fritz Lang’s M (1931) – whistles Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt (1875) whenever he is stalking his child victims. The film establishes such a connection between the character and the tune that, toward the end, the killer’s presence is indicated through his off-screen whistling.
In the following decades, M’s innovative use of a leitmotif that links memorable music from the Western repertoire to its villain would be increasingly mirrored in American productions as well. Today, linking movie villains to Western art music has become a trope of American entertainment, as “For Hollywood, classical music has become the trademark of villains.”
Among the more celebrated of such films, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) depicts a Nazi officer casually playing Bach on a piano as his fellow soldiers round up and execute Polish Jews. In the Christmas movie classic Die Hard (1998), the “Ode to Joy” theme from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is played in scenes with Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber. The appeal of using Western art music in film comes from several factors.
One practical reason for its frequent use in American visual media is the memorability of its main tunes. Over the centuries, themes such as Beethoven’s aforementioned ode have stood the test of time and become integral parts of Western musical culture. Designed as tuneful contrasts to recitative sections, the operatic arias used in film and television typically represent the most memorable parts of their larger works.
Depending on the recording, Western art music also has the benefit of being royalty-free, offering recognizable musical material at little or no additional cost. Beyond these practical considerations, however, Western art music, and in particular opera, can also fulfill a number of dramatic functions in a cinematic production as a pre-existing, culturally and narratively charged sonic marker.
Lacking a plot with defined characters, instrumental music is non-narrative, at least in the sense of fictional storytelling. As an abstract sonic element in film, it is commonly used for dramatic effect because of its inherent affective power. One of the most popular pieces among filmmakers is the “Ride of the Valkyries” from Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküren (1870). In Birth of a Nation (1915), for example, the German composer’s heroic music underscores the Ku Klux Klan’s actions. The first American-made film with an orchestral score, it is infamous today for presenting the organization as a force preserving American values.
Like Western art music in general, opera is also used frequently throughout Western media, from Beyoncé’s cover of Bizet’s Carmen for a Pepsi advert to Wagner, Rossini, and Donizetti in Looney Tunes cartoons to major Hollywood productions. Because of its inherently narrative makeup, opera also offers associative potential in addition to its dramatic effect.
Providing subtext through intertextual reference, operatic pieces help characterize a film’s protagonists and antagonists, adding a musical tool for extra-diegetic exposition that works across genres, including romantic, comedic, and dramatic. Romantic movies often draw on music’s affective power to underscore a scene’s intended emotional impact. In James Ivory’s A Room with a View (1985), for example, the aria “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” from Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (1918) sets the mood in a kissing scene between Lucy and George. Beyond the music’s emotional effect, the aria’s meaning- a young woman changed forever by a kiss- underscores the scene’s relevance to the film’s narrative arc.
In Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman (1990), a diegetic performance of “Amami, Alfredo” from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata (1853) invites similar comparisons between the two narratives, including the unrequited love the respective prostitute heroines feel for a wealthy man. Even when the music is strictly instrumental, subtextual and intertextual implications can shape a film’s interpretation. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980), for example, features the “Intermezzo” from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (1890) over the credits, arguably referencing the opera’s adulterous affair, which mirrors the film’s suspected love triangle.
Comedies often draw on dramatic arias for comedic effect. Pixar’s Up (2009), for example, juxtaposes the lively “Habanera” aria from Georges Bizet’s Carmen (1875) as non-diegetic background with the main character’s mundane daily routine. As in romantic films, however, opera can also add narrative depth to comedies. Chris Columbus’s Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), for example, includes “Largo al factotum” from Gioachino Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) as a diegetic performance by Robin Williams’s protagonist at the beginning of the movie. As a professional voice actor, he is tasked with recording the piece, notoriously difficult to perform, for the animated movie he is working on. Not only does the scene offer comedic value through Williams’s exaggerated interpretation of the quick melodic runs and machine-gun-fire-like delivery of the aria; at the same time, it references an opera that features crossdressing as a plot point, effectively foreshadowing the character’s later strategy to get closer to his children by disguising himself as their nanny.
Beyond such intertextual references, opera can also play a direct role in a film’s narrative as a diegetic piece that immediately influences the plot. In Frank Darabont’s drama The Shawshank Redemption (1994), for example, Tim Robbins’s incarcerated character risks punishment by playing “Sull’aria” from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1786) over the prison speakers in an act of defiance. Likewise, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) features both the instrumental opening and operatic sections of Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre (1870).
In the film, the music is used as a diegetic form of psychological warfare as the American forces attack a fortified Vietnamese village. Beyond any symbolism that may associate the 1st Air Cavalry with mythical gods, the music also contradicts the invaders’ violence and betrays the Americans’ hollow sense of heroism revealed in the anti-war message of the film.
While arias typically signal narrative stasis in opera, they can also add layers of meaning that help an audience understand the characters in film. In this light, opera undoubtedly offers considerable narrative potential to a filmmaker. Critically, however, these references work only for those familiar enough with the opera to connect its musical elements to concrete plot points and infer additional meanings in the film they are watching. Because opera is relatively obscure in modern mass entertainment and popular culture, it is unlikely that anyone but a student of the genre will connect the dots as intended. This suggests that most references made to operatic plots are lost on the average audience member.
Ironically, it is exactly the genre’s status, removed from mass consumption, that gives it meaning for a general audience despite its vast narrative potential. Unfamiliar to most of the general cinema audience, opera predominantly functions as a marker of refinement and intellectualism. This is especially true when considering how filmmakers use opera to characterize movie villains.
Operatic Villains in American Film and Television
Often considered the pinnacle of performed drama, artistic vocal expression, and theatrical staging, opera has long been synonymous with sophisticated art, even beyond its core audience. The genre’s epic scope and technical complexity, evident in operatic singing techniques as well as its compositions, sets, and costumes, may be rivalled by modern cinema productions; its wide range of narrative, emotional, and musical expression, in addition to its extended format and ticket costs, however, mark it as entertainment for the educated.
While this historical association of opera with elitism and intellectualism comes to the detriment of modern opera productions, in film it can make a foe seem layered and formidable, increasing the perceived stakes of the plot. In the process, a villain’s enjoyment of opera signals depth of thought beyond brute force; it signals the same education, wealth, and power often associated with elite real-life audiences of operatic performances.
In The Untouchables (1987), for example, Robert De Niro’s Al Capone attends a diegetic performance of Canio’s aria “Vesti la giubba” from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1892). As the operatic character laments his wife’s infidelity in the scene, Capone learns that his gang murdered his long-time adversary, the police officer James Malone. While the aria’s morale that the show must go on may invite any number of broad interpretations in any scenario involving a struggle, there is no clear narrative link here between Canio and Capone; in the opera, the harm is done to the former, whereas in the film, the harm is orchestrated by the latter.
Used this way, opera in film can provide an aural contrast that shapes the audience’s interpretation of the explicit visual violence on screen. Juxtaposed with the acoustic timbre of symphonic strings, the heinous acts committed by the villain and his followers can appear more jarring in comparison and be marked as deliberate and rational rather than impulsive and emotional.
The use of European opera as a marker of intelligence has in fact become a trope of modern Hollywood movie villains. This is especially evident in two of the most enduring villains in American film: Professor James Moriarty and Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Portrayed by several actors across films and TV shows, both have left a lasting impression on popular culture because of their perceived superiority and the threat they pose to their respective protagonists. In part, this stems from the superior intellect they showcase, among other things, through their connection to opera.
Originally an icon of British fiction, James Moriarty first appeared in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels The Adventure of the Final Problem (1893) and The Valley of Fear (1914). The brilliant archenemy of the famous detective, Moriarty is a former mathematics professor turned secret criminal mastermind who matches his adversary in both intellect and eloquence. While the literary Moriarty has no connection to opera, his appreciation of high art is at least suggested by his ownership of an expensive French painting in The Valley of Fear. This appreciation extends to opera in the character’s cinematic depiction.
In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), Jared Harris’s Moriarty attends a diegetic opera performance of “Don Giovanni! A cenar teco m’invitasti” from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787) as an alibi for an attack he orchestrated to be carried out elsewhere. The audience hears only the final part of the Commendatore’s aria, which describes Hell before demons drag the titular character down into it. While the aria may foreshadow Moriarty’s demise at the end as punishment for his crimes, it clearly establishes Moriarty as a sophisticated man.
Supporting this reading, Schubert’s “Fischerweise” (1826) plays during their first meeting. Holmes introduces himself by announcing the title, composer, and date of the composition as their familiarity with it unites the two adversaries in their intellectual superiority. Later, Moriarty sings along to another of Schubert’s Lieder, “Die Forelle” (1821), as he tortures the protagonist, again juxtaposing extreme violence with cultural refinement.
In this context, it is no surprise that the British TV adaptation Sherlock (2010–17) draws on the same trope. In “The Reichenbach Fall”, the third episode of the second season (2012), Moriarty listens to the instrumental overture from Gioachino Rossini’s La gazza ladra (1817) on ear pods while breaking into the Tower of London. Here, however, a clear link to theft connects the criminal mastermind and the titular magpie. Both set off the plot by taking something that is not theirs. Beyond this intertextual reference, portrayals of Moriarty in film and television use opera to evoke the trope of cultural refinement and intellectualism. In this, Moriarty is no different from the other major villain considered here.
Appearing first in Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon (1981) and its sequels The Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal (1999), and Hannibal Rising (2006), Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a Lithuanian-born serial killer and cannibal. Described as a descendant of European aristocracy, Lecter is highly cultured and educated. Having obtained a degree in medicine, he has worked as a clinical and forensic psychiatrist. He is also a polyglot and a gourmet chef. Lecter values manners above all else; he enjoys sketching and serves on the board of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra; and his eidetic memory and superior intellect shine through in his conversations, his evasion of capture, and his continued study of medicine amid all the action.
Establishing his connection to the arts, Lecter later works as a museum curator in Florence, Italy. Throughout the novels, it is indicated that he killed some of his victims in a way reminiscent of medieval art, including the surgical diagram “Wound Man”. In addition, Lecter is also connected to a series of murders in Florence during which the victims were arranged as art tableaux.
Lecter’s connection to opera first appears on screen in Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (2001). During the film, Anthony Hopkins’s character finds employment as a museum curator in Florence after giving a lecture on medieval art while on the run from the FBI. Assuming the identity of one of his victims, he later attends a diegetic opera performance of “Vide cor meum” by Patrick Cassidy while being observed by the Italian inspector who is investigating him for personal gain. Composed specifically for the film, the piece is based on Dante’s sonnet A ciascun’alma presa, a love poem with no clear link to the scene other than a vague reference to cannibalism in the film: “then made / My heart her feast.”
Instead, the music signals the character’s cultivated leisure activities. Dr. Lecter’s portrayals in other movies further strengthen the character’s connection to Western art music as a marker of his intellect. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) features the diegetic use of Glenn Gould’s interpretation of “Aria” from Johann-Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741) during Lecter’s violent escape scene. In Red Dragon (2002), Lecter attends a diegetic performance of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1827), ultimately deciding to murder and eat the orchestra’s flautist as punishment for his faulty playing.
In NBC’s TV show Hannibal (2013–15), Mads Mikkelsen portrays the character with similar sophistication. With the same backstory, education, and professional history, Dr. Lecter also plays the harpsichord in the sixth episode of the second season (“Futamono”, 2014). In the show, opera similarly signals Lecter’s refined tastes to the audience. In “Sorbet”, the seventh episode of the first season (2013), Lecter is shown attending (and applauding) a diegetic opera performance of Cleopatra’s aria “Piangero la sorte mia” from Georg Friedrich Händel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1724).
Lamenting the loss of the battle and Caesar, Cleopatra has no clear link to Lecter or anyone else in the scene. In comparison, the third episode of the second season, “Hassun” (2014), treats the audience to “Dalla sua pace,” Don Ottavio’s aria from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787), as Lecter dresses for the trial of his colleague and later love interest Will Graham, whom he framed for murder. In the aria, Don Ottavio professes his love for – and laments the possible loss of – Don Anna:
On her, my treasure, all joy dependeth,
Life hath no pleasure, but that she sendeth,
Sorrows that grieve her, torture my heart,
E’en when she sigheth, my sighs awaken,
And joy it dieth, by her forsaken;
Oh, worst of torments, from her to part!
Similarly, Lecter begins to have second thoughts about his actions, ultimately leading him to work toward Will’s acquittal. At the same time, the scene depicts the character donning an elegant suit and tie against a backdrop of operatic music.
Famously a Florentine invention, this use of opera links intellectual and cultural superiority to the continent of Europe. In this way, the genre mirrors instrumental art music, which is often used similarly to signal differences in class and education. The sophisticated sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in Die Hard, for example, remind both John McClain and the audience that he is out of place at the bow-tied office Christmas party he attends to reconcile with his estranged wife.
Of course, not every American movie villain is characterized by operatic music, and not every villain characterized that way is connected to the European musical tradition. As a counterexample, the main antagonist, Vecna, in the fourth season of the Netflix series Stranger Things (2022) is accompanied by Phillip Glass’s Akhnaten (1983) in Episode 7, “Chapter 7: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab.” Drawing on an American opera, the scene effectively parallels the villain’s transformation from Henry Creel/001 into Vecna with the opera’s Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV becoming Akhenaten.
However, the operas most frequently used in American film are predominantly Italian and German. The connection of characters to perceived European refinement, then, is typically emphasised also via casting choices. For example, American actor Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Sherlock Holmes in the American adaptation of the source material, but his nemesis is still played by British actor Jared Harris. Likewise, American productions portray Hannibal Lecter as the Scottish actor Brian Cox, the Welshman Anthony Hopkins, and the Dane Mads Mikkelsen, respectively. In part, this association of non-American antagonists with European cultural prestige has roots in the country’s history.
The Sophisticated European and American Perceptions of Modern Opera
The sophisticated European is a trope in American entertainment culture that goes well beyond its villainous characters. Particularly popular in this context are depictions of British characters such as the witty butler, seen among others in the Batman franchise’s Alfred and Niles from Fran Drescher’s sitcom The Nanny. American cultural depictions of foreigners often reflect geopolitical trends and American perceptions of other cultures, shaped by historical and current developments. Famously, major villains are either Germans, Russians, Chinese, or North Koreans, depending on the most recent ideological and/or military conflict. Likewise, the European intellectual trope is arguably rooted in the complex historical relationship between the US and the continent from which its first settlers departed in dispute.
Against the backdrop of American hegemony in the realms of economy, military, and mass culture, this relationship has been interpreted as a prevailing inferiority complex that is in part linked to the influence of European art on early American artists: “Cultural historians have pointed out time and again that American artistic tastes at least until the late 19th century were essentially derived from Europe.” Continued attempts to emancipate from the Old Continent were, among other things, evident in the obsession with creating an inherently American music.
Early popular music in the US, including 19th-century minstrel shows, Broadway music, and Tin Pan Alley ballads, drew mainly on European folk and dance music that European immigrants had introduced to the broader population. American art-music composers, too, had lived in the shadow of the European tradition from the nation’s very beginnings, yearning to find their own, distinctly ‘American’ music. In 1929, George Gershwin posed that even though many had tried, the first truly American music, i.e., “something indigenous, […] autochthonous, […] deeply rooted in our soil,” emerged only at the dawn of the 20th century in the form of jazz.
At the same time, Americans seem unable to shake their fascination with their ancestry, as the population remains preoccupied with its European heritage as a marker of identity. Like many Americans, for example, comedian Conan O’Brien frequently refers to himself as “Irish”, even though no one outside of the US would consider him anything but American. In the US, European culture still stands for elegance and refinement, from French and Italian art to German philosophy and engineering to British literature and intellectualism. In particular, the latter has shaped representations in American entertainment, as actors from both Britain and the US continue to capitalize on the common association of Received Pronunciation with prestige and education. In a larger sense, the two-fold use of opera in American film outlined above also reflects the genre’s societal role and historical reception.
From the 17th century onward, opera was also a major influence on 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century European instrumental art music. Italian vocal music, among other influences, shaped the galant style, and opera composers such as Wagner heralded the increasingly chromatic and atonal experiments of later centuries. Today, both are widely perceived as elite entertainment in opposition to the dominant forms of mass entertainment. Originally composed for patrons of European courts, opera became a public affair when the first public opera house opened in Venice in 1637. By encouraging mixing among social classes in the audience, opera music also reached the general public through sheet music and concerts.
Even in 19th-century America, however, audiences were attracted to the genre “in part by its prestige as a European art form. [At the time, there…] was virtually no demand for American composers to produce opera on a similar scale because no local product carried the same cachet.” Over the past two centuries, a “[irreparable] split between elite and popular theater” has emerged, rooted in the “high seriousness” found in Wagner and his contemporaries. In response, popular entertainment such as operetta and vaudeville emerged as opera increasingly became an art for connoisseurs.
American filmmakers draw on this lasting perception of prestige and elitism inherent in the genre. Among many examples, corrupt policeman Norman Stansfield in Léon: The Professional (1994) makes polite conversation about classical composers with a man whose family he just executed, listening to “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s ninth symphony on headphones:
“You don’t like Beethoven. You don’t know what you’re missing. Overtures like that get my juices flowing. […] But after his openings, to be honest, he tends to get a little fucking boring. That’s why I stopped. […] You’re a Mozart fan. I love him, too. […] He was Austrian, you know? For this kind of work, he’s a bit light, so I tend to go for the heavier guys.”
The comedy of the scene stems from both the juxtaposition of horrific violence and casual conversation and the character’s pretense that his appreciation of Western art-music composers is universal. In reality, modern audiences are closer to Oldman’s dialogue partner in the scene in their relative ignorance of classical music and opera.
Several factors have prevented attempts to establish opera as mass entertainment in the US. For one, the language barrier prevents most Americans from relating to the text, which is predominantly sung in Italian, German, or French in the genre’s major works. Similarly, modern audiences are put off by the extended format, which no longer matches the demands of our collective, shrinking attention span. Mass culture, by contrast, has adjusted accordingly, and both songs and videos are becoming increasingly short to match consumers’ streaming habits.
Despite continued attempts to attract a modern audience through outreach programs, lectures, online streaming, and other marketing strategies, opera has become a relative niche entertainment. Further complicating perceptions of the genre, opera houses in Vienna or Hamburg regularly charge hundreds of dollars per ticket despite public funding. Against this backdrop, it is no wonder the genre is perceived first and foremost as a marker of intellectualism and cultural refinement, and used accordingly.
Befitting the genre’s origins in Greek drama, filmmakers use opera for intertextual references that enhance or reflect on a film’s narrative. In American visual entertainment, the genre also frequently marks sophistication, rooted in the perceived prestige of its European heritage. Opera’s use to characterize villains such as James Moriarty and Hannibal Lecter as refined, formidable foes reflects the genre’s continued association with high art and intellectualism. While opera continues to flourish artistically and remains a cornerstone of Western musical culture, the trope ultimately highlights its lack of mass appeal and familiarity among 20th- and 21st-century audiences.
Works Cited
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