Trivia / Opera (1987)

• Fake Nationality: The cast includes Cristina Marsillach (Spanish), Ian Charleson (English), Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (American), and William McNamara (also American) - all playing Italians.
• Non-Singing Voice: Cristina Marsillach's singing was dubbed by soprano Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz.
• Troubled Production:
  • One of the main male leads was in a car accident, forcing them to have to film everything but his scenes as they did not know if they had to recast him or not.
  • Argento made the decision to hire an actual opera singer (to give credibility for the opera sequences) over an actress for the role of Betty, leading to him and the singer feuding during the entire production due to her inexperience as an actor.
  • Argento's father died during production, plunging him into a state of severe depression.
  • There was boiling tension between Argento and his ex-girlfriend/collaborator Daria Nicolodi. Having just broken up with Argento, Nicolodi reluctantly agreed to appear in the film as a favor to her ex only to freak out and accusing him of trying to kill her when she read the script and realized that her character would die in a sequence where the actress herself could potentially die.
  • Finally, there was massive infighting with Orion, the film's US distributor over their demand that Argento cut the film's final sequence (which was a bloody "Sound of Music" homage set on the actual hillside where Julie Andrews famously filmed the scene where she sang the musical's iconic theme song). Argento refused to cut the scene, resulting in Orion backing out of their agreement to release the film (retitled "Terror At the Opera") in theaters.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Dario Argento wanted to cast a real opera singer as Betty, and went to war with the producers over it, who overruled him and cast Cristina Marsillach. The two wound up clashing constantly on-set, and Argento reportedly was extremely harsh towards her, while he claims that she was the most "difficult actress to have ever worked with".
  • Vanessa Redgrave was attached to appear as Mara Czekova, but dropped out shortly before production began. The role was then reduced to a minor one. According to actor William McNamara, Redgrave was hired for a week of work but exited the film with full salary having never once been called to the set.
  • Jasmine Maimone auditioned for the part of Betty.
  • Argento scripted an alternate ending where after Marco was killed, Betty would realize she was sadistically in love with the killer. The two would then flee together into the Swiss countryside and the film would end.

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