[schigolch]

One of my favorites is the first scene of Poulenc's "Dialogues des carmélites".

 

[Sloe]

Pietro Mascagni´s Iris first the sung is singing then Iris is outside her house singing an aria about a scary dream.

 

[howlingfantods]

are we on scary arias? I'll go for Hagen calling the Vassals: Hoiho! Hoihohoho! Ihr Gibichsmannen, machet euch auf! (from Gotterdammerung.)

 

[DavidA]

are we on scary arias? I'll go for Hagen calling the Vassals: Hoiho! Hoihohoho! Ihr Gibichsmannen, machet euch auf! (from Gotterdammerung.)

Yeah that is scary! Bu what about Scarpia's Te Deum in Tosca?

 

[Balthazar]

Iago's Credo from Verdi's Otello.

 

[Celloman]

"Credo in un Dio crudel"

Otello - Verdi

Iago is one bad dude. This aria chills my blood every time.

P.S. Balthazar, we must have had the same brain wave!

 

[Tsaraslondon]

Lady Macbeth's La luce langue, especially in Callas's 1952 live performance with Victor De Sabata conjuring up all sorts of nightmarish ghouls from the orchestra pit.

 

[Green pasture]

Lady Macbeth's La luce langue, especially in Callas's 1952 live performance with Victor De Sabata conjuring up all sorts of nightmarish ghouls from the orchestra pit.

YT friend turnipoverlord's upload of this particular scene from the BJR LP edition (best sound) of the 1952 La Scala performance:

 

[The Conte]

Do scenas count as an aria?

"E che, io son Medea!" Most scariest sung by Callas in Florence:

N.

 

[Braddan]

Not strictly an aria but every time Otrud turns she scares the hell out of me.

 

[Don Fatale]

I was tempted to go for Iago's Credo from Otello, and certainly agree about the chilling La Luce Langue, but I think Scarpia's Te Deum (Tosca) just edges it for sheer menace, certainly enhanced by the contrast of the choral background.

 

[Woodduck]

Not strictly an aria but every time Otrud turns she scares the hell out of me.

With a great mezzo-soprano like Christa Ludwig hurling it across the footlights, Ortrud's "Entweihte Gotter" is about the most fearsome minute and a half you could live through.

 

[Braddan]

With a great mezzo-soprano like Christa Ludwig hurling it across the footlights, Ortrud's "Entweihte Gotter" is about the most fearsome minute and a half you could live through.

Thanks for that link-awesome in the true sense of the word.

 

[Admiral]

As a tenor I'd have to say the scariest aria is Di quella pira with those high Cs

 

[Woodduck]

"Hagen's Watch on the Rhine" from Gotterdammerung makes me shiver and shudder. Here's some pure blackness from Ludwig Weber in 1936:

 

[silentio]

In Dialogues des Carmelites, the death of Mother Superior, when done correctly, can be pretty creepy:

 

[Itullian]

Opening of Act 3 of Tristan.
Devestating

 

[Itullian]

Opening of Walkure. Amazing

 

[Don Fatale]

So we'e on to best instrumental passage now? Sorry, guys above, but it says no overtures or preludes... but that still leaves me with Siegfried's Funeral Music from Gotterdammerung. Spine-tingling-goose-bumping-nerve-shredding moments of genius.

 

[Itullian]

oops, sorry ..............................