Nadine Sierra in the title role of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (Photo: Cory Weaver / San Francisco Opera)
When a character is pushed to their absolute limit, that’s when the drama gets good.
One of opera’s most delicious signatures is the mad scene. Whether marking a shocking realization, a wave of guilt, or a rush of mania, mad scenes are often the title’s apex, as drama and music come to a head as one.
Given that the mad scene is such a staple, there are scores of worthy entries. We’ve chosen these six to showcase the narrative and vocal possibilities that the enthralling genre fixture can present.
Alban Berg’s Wozzeck: “Wo ist das Messer?”
Berg’s dark opera is an exploration of class and morality. A poor soldier, Wozzeck loses his grip on reality after humiliation and abuse by military and medical authorities and the betrayal of his love. He stabs her, and in this climactic scene, he tries to hide the knife in the water but loses both the weapon (“Wo is das Messer?” means “Where is the knife?”) his grip on reality and himself drowns.
Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes: “Grimes!”
After the death of one of his apprentices, fisherman Peter Grimes is ostracized and judged within his small town. Under the weight of his guilt and rejection, Grimes agitatedly relives his past. With an unsettling choral backing — the angry townsfolk — repeating “Peter Grimes,” the title character contemplates his life. “Water will drink his sorrows — my sorrows — dry.” He soon takes the chorus's lead, repeating his own name feverishly, before setting off to sea, never to be heard from again.
Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor: “Il dolce suono”
The mother of all mad scenes, the title character has murdered her husband (on the night of their arranged marriage!), and falls into a state of mania. She appears in the wedding hall, disoriented but covered in blood. The vocally demanding role is often complemented by shocking stagecraft and blood-stained wardrobe. The tempestuous, demanding soprano aria captures the disturbed title character’s full range of emotions.
George Frideric Handel’s Orlando: “Ah! stigie larve”
The end of Act II features the title character onstage by himself, for nearly ten minutes. Orlando has fallen for Angelica, but he discovers that she loves another man. Right as the curtain sets on act two, Orlando is heartbroken and gripped by rage, vowing to kill both Angelica and his rival, Medoro. “I am now a spirit divided from myself…” The rare opera with a mad scene and a happy ending, the wizard Zoroastro intervenes and restores Orlando’s sanity and happiness.
Gioachino Rossini’s Semiramide: “Deh! Ti ferma!”
Gioachino Rossini’s Babylonian opera adapts Voltaire’s play Semiramis. Semiramis, the power-hungry Queen of Babylon, conspires with her lover, Assur, to murder her husband. Sung by a bass, Assur’s emotional aria sees the villain reckoning with his guilt (“Ah! Pity of the oppressed.”).
Richard Strauss’s Elektra: “Elektra! Schwester!”
Richard Strauss’s one-act opera reaches a fever pitch with its finale, as the title character gripped by grief and ecstasy at her brother’s murder of Klytämnestra and Aegisth, dances manically until she dies. Strauss’s booming orchestration and great vocal demands underscore the character’s shocking demise.
