I’d give anything for the ability to disattach my head and scare the neighbors on Halloween.
So it’s no wonder that Lydia Deetz wants to be a ghost in Beetlejuice. Sure, you’re stuck in your home and can only go sightseeing on Saturn, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had.
Lydia is well aware, and in the film’s darkest scene she writes what is intended to be her final goodbye to the human world. Of course, it’s always better to compose with some appropriate music, and thankfully Miss Deetz is a fan of opera.
The piece that plays as she writes is “Regnava nel Silenzio”, from the 1835 gothic opera Lucia di Lammermoor. Lucia, the main character, sings the aria while telling her maid that she has just seen a ghost of a girl appear near a fountain.
The ghost beckons to Lucia and the fountain’s water turns blood-red.
Coincidence that it was used in a movie about ghosts? Not on your afterlife.
You can read the English lyrics to the aria here.
Another aria from Lucia di Lammermoor, commonly known as “Il Dolce Suono,” later gained renewed attention after it was sung by the character Diva Plavalaguna in The Fifth Element.
Thankfully, Lydia Deetz chose to live and switched out Lucia for Harry Belafonte. At least Donizetti didn’t compose “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)” or it might have been the most depressing calypso song ever.
Watch your movies. Wear your movies.
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