Opera

Boasting quite possibly his most iconic single image, almost certainly his most spectacular death scene, and indisputably his most insane ending, this is essential Argento.

Thrust into the lead role of an avant-garde staging of Verdi’s Macbeth, an understudy finds herself stalked by a killer who forces her to watch his murders.

Inspired by his own failed production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, Opera (like Tenebrae) sees Argento in self-reflexive mode, interrogating the spectacle and consumption of violence as entertainment. Meanwhile the soundtrack, a discordant coupling of Verdi’s melancholic arias with thrashing heavy metal riffs, is a perfect aural metaphor for a filmmaker always balanced on a knife-edge between high and low art. This presentation is in Italian with English subtitles.