Opera does scary.... scarily well.
From its very beginnings in Renaissance Italy, opera was an attempt to recreate a form of Classical theatre that might help us, through storytelling and music, to understand the nature of our existence in a terrifying and limitless universe. Mythical gods, sorcerers, ghosts, monsters, things that go bump in the night: the world of the supernatural is woven into the fabric of opera, heightened by music that colours and guides our emotional and psychic response. If you're curious about the scariest operas ever written, we've got plenty of juicy fare for you.
The operatic voice itself is, in a sense, ‘super-natural’ – an extreme form of expression that projects the inner lives of characters onto a vast canvas, providing a perfect vehicle for inspiring awe and terror. In many Romance languages, the word for singing is derived from the Latin ‘cantare’, whose origins lie in casting of spells, or incantations. Some of the earliest examples of the supernatural in opera revolve around the subversive qualities of witchcraft and sorcery.
So, here they are: music's scariest operas
1. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (1689)
Witches and sorcerers have always fascinated our great composers. Handel’s opera Alcina warns of the malignant effects of the supernatural on Enlightenment ideals: luring men to her island, the eponymous sorceress turns them into beasts. And in Henry Purcell’s tragic opera Dido and Aeneas, the witches who lure Aeneas away from Carthage represent what was regarded in 17th-century England as the pernicious, destabilising influence of Roman Catholicism.
2. Rossini: Armida (1817)
In Gioachino Rossini’s Armida, the heroine is an enchantress who uses magic to lure the knight Rinaldo from his Crusader mission. The opera blends Rossini’s bel canto brilliance with a grand, fantastical setting, full of dazzling coloratura fireworks. Unique among his works, Armida features elaborate orchestration, choruses, and ballet scenes, creating unforgettable moments of magic and spectacle — like Armida summoning spirits to trap Rinaldo and his comrades in Act II.
3. Verdi: Macbeth (1847)
Verdi’s Macbeth reimagines Shakespeare’s witches as a large, three-part female chorus, singing grotesque, ribald music. Verdi wanted them to be “trivial, yet extravagant and original,” though critics like Julian Budden felt their jaunty choruses lacked real terror. Still, the witches’ childish malice shines through, and modern directors often use them to explore how ideas of fear and the supernatural have evolved for opera audiences.
4. Mozart: The Magic Flute (1791)
For Enlightenment thinkers, the supernatural symbolized irrationality, holding humanity back from progress. In Mozart’s The Magic Flute, darkness and light clash through extreme vocal writing: the Queen of the Night’s dizzying coloratura evokes chaos, while Sarastro’s calm, resonant arias restore order. Music becomes a tool for harmony, with Tamino’s flute and Papageno’s bells charming beasts, banishing spirits, and guiding the heroes through their trials.
5. Mozart: Don Giovanni (1787)
Much of Mozart’s music reflects Enlightenment ideals of reason and order. But when the supernatural intrudes, he creates soundworlds that truly unsettle. In Don Giovanni, ominous opening chords foreshadow the terror to come. Mozart’s rare use of trombones, particularly in Don Giovanni’s encounters with the Commendatore’s statue, conjures a supernatural realm through jarring harmonies and eerie orchestral textures that shake the listener to the core.
6. Weber: Der Freischütz (1821)
Often called the first Romantic opera, Der Freischütz showcases the supernatural’s powerful impact on orchestral and choral colour. In the famous Wolf’s Glen scene, Max makes a Faustian pact, while Weber conjures terror with tremulous strings, chromatic descents, and chilling choral cries. Though familiar today from horror films, in 1821 this dark, turbulent sound world was a groundbreaking and genuinely terrifying musical portrayal of the supernatural.
7. Verdi: Don Carlos (1867)
Mozart and Weber set the musical blueprint for 19th-century supernatural scenes. In Verdi’s Don Carlos, heavy brass and uneasy harmonies evoke terror in the haunted monastery. Verdi’s writing echoes the netherworld of Don Giovanni. Tchaikovsky, who admired Don Giovanni and Der Freischütz, drew on their eerie atmospheres for The Queen of Spades, praising Weber’s powerful depiction of the supernatural as a "mighty creative force."
8. Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable (1831)
Giacomo Meyerbeer, a friend of Weber, took theatrical supernaturalism even further with Robert le Diable (1831). A huge hit, it helped launch French Grand Opera, featuring a ballet where ghostly nuns rise from their tombs in an eerie, gas-lit spectacle. The scene’s haunting effect captivated audiences, including Impressionist painter Edgar Degas, who was so mesmerized he captured it several times in his paintings.
9. Wagner: Ring Cycle (1848-74)
Der Freischütz, meanwhile, made a profound impact on Wagner, who saw the opera as a nine year-old in Dresden, conducted by Weber himself. You can hear Weber’s influence throughout Wagner’s works, and especially in his evocation of otherworldly terror when he deploys deep brass and woodwind resonances together with chilling vocal ‘sound effects’ such as the shrieking of the Valkyries in the Ring cycle or the haunting wailings of dead sailors on the ghost ship in The Flying Dutchman.
10. Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann (1881)
Terror doesn’t always, of course, come in noisy blasts. The supernatural world can be as seductive as it is frightening, and music’s devilish power to seduce is a frequent theme in opera. In Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, a catalogue of strange and sinister supernatural events, Antonia (a singer) is lured by the voice of her mother’s ghost to sing herself to death.
11. Paul Moravec: The Shining (2015)
Adapted from Stephen King’s novel, Paul Moravec’s opera captures the Torrance family’s terrifying stay at the haunted Overlook Hotel. As Jack Torrance spirals into madness, Moravec’s eerie score heightens the psychological tension, weaving haunting motifs that evoke both the hotel’s sinister presence and Jack’s unraveling mind. The opera transforms King’s famous horror story into a chilling musical experience.
And perhaps the scariest of all operas...
12. Britten: The Turn of the Screw (1954)
An even more unsettling example of the seductive power of singing can be heard in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. Here, the ghost of Peter Quint sings in soft, melismatic, quasi-erotic whisperings that simultaneously attract and repel the ill-fated young Miles. Britten’s opera is a masterpiece in psychological horror, surpassing the creepiness of Henry James’s novella on which it is based.
The suspense is sustained from start to finish, as Britten winds the musical structure of his score tighter and tighter around a tortuous 12-tone row that ascends in the first act and descends in the second. The masterly use of the celeste and harp evokes the exotic, sensual appeal of the two ghosts, Quint and Miss Jessel, in their quest to seduce the souls of the two young children.
In a world before Freud and psychoanalysis, one way that the subconscious could be expressed was through the supernatural. Ghosts can be explained as cathartic manifestations of unresolved psychic conflict. It seems no accident that Mozart wrote Don Giovanni, an opera in which the protagonist’s bad behaviour is met with severe punishment, shortly after the death of his father Leopold, a manipulative and judgemental presence in the composer’s life.
The supernatural represents the fear of confronting who we really are
And Britten’s Turn of the Screw, though written in a post-Freudian world, is addressed to a society in post-war Britain in which sex was still essentially repressed and many forms of sexuality were taboo. In this opera, the supernatural represents the fear of confronting who we really are: the story of the Governess’s unfulfilled infatuation is played out in the form of a supernatural struggle between good and evil. The resolution comes through the sacrifice of innocence.
The idea of a supernatural world challenges man’s sense of agency over his own destiny. Ghost stories and scenes of paranormal terror remind us how helpless we are in the face of things we cannot control. Indeed, being drawn to the supernatural is a very natural part of being human – a way of addressing life’s abundant mystery. Opera, with its playful relationship with reality and its love of extremes, is an ideal artform for transporting us into worlds that lie in our imagination and beyond.
All pics: Getty Images
