Diva Plavalaguna’s Aria

Abstract

In the opera episode of Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997), the alien Diva Plavalaguna performs an aria in which a fragment of the Mad scene from Act III of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor is replaced by a vocalization composed by Eric Serra. This article examines the relationship of the vocalization to the opera number and the unified form of the aria, created by combining seemingly incompatible parts. The Diva’s aria, in a concise and elementary form, is la solita forma, the traditional form of the Italian aria of the first half of the nineteenth century. Even though most of Rossini’s, Bellini’s, and Donizetti’s operas — solo and ensemble — and many of Verdi’s numbers up to his mature operas, including his most popular arias, are based on this form, la solita forma is often not perceived by the modern listener. The Diva’s aria, whose structure is wittily emphasized by its cinematic solution, offers a visualization and a lesson in hearing the central nineteenth-century operatic form. In addition, the article discusses nineteenth- and twentieth-century operatic practice, the way opera, and in particular Lucia di Lammermoor, are performed, and the transformation of the operatic work from performance to performance, as well as from era to era. The inclusion of the vocalization in the aria of the Diva of Plavalaguna is considered in the context of the changes introduced into the Mad scene by the author of the opera and the opera divas of past centuries.