The Diva Dance by Eric Serra - Essay Example

Eric Serra, who composed The Diva Dance, which was used in the movie The Fifth Element as much of the film's overall score, and it shows a significant influence of Middle Eastern music, particularly Ra. The Diva Dance opera performance featured music from Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor Part Two, Act Two, N. 14 Scena ed aria, "and was voiced by Inva Mula-Tchako, while the role of Plavalaguna is humanoid alien, her vocalizations seem beyond physical possibility; however, in a documentary feature on the Special Edition DVD release, it is stated that Mula-Tchako's voice was not digitally altered.

Canadian vocalist Marie-ve Munger performed the complete Diva Dance before a live audience, and her performance was later aired on Quebec television as part of a promotion for a televised boxing event" (Wikipedia, 2007). One of the most major and significant similarities between the two musical compositions is that of their background and influences; they both have a very noticeable opera tone to them, which makes sense as since the 1980s operatic excerpts have been employed increasingly and prominently in blockbuster films, and "in some films, opera excerpts are used as signifiers of the properties commonly associated with opera - love, exoticism, high culture, excess, death, gayness, Italianness, and so on.

Other films employ opera excerpts for identificatory purposes, that is, to provide parallelism between the film and the source opera at the narrative level, and in so doing, to reinforce cinematic characters' emotions or actions" (Stanford, 1999). One of the most major differences between the two is the obviousness of the connection between the composition and the film itself; The Diva Dance is obvious, while the other is not. However, although the connection between the film and Lucia is not as obvious the other composition, Donizetti's opera can still be considered as being a referential point for the interpretation of the opera scene in the film: "a feminist reading could focus on the parallelism between the operatic heroine's sacrificial death and that of the diva, although the latter is not for love, as the operatic tradition demands, but for a more sublime purpose, for the Redemption of mankind" (Stanford, 1999).

From this review we can conclude many different things, several which are of particular importance, and namely the fact that the musical compositions used in The Fifth Element are incredibly major and significant, and that the two most major musical compositions, of which have been discussed here, have many similarities and differences, as well of which have been discussed here, and of which are of great importance in order to make the identification of the overall performance of each composition.