Inva Mula spins heavenly high tones in Bizet's mad scene

THE SONGBIRD: Inva Mula was born in 1963 to parents who were both opera singers. She won several voice competitions in the early 1990s, which launched her into a career as something of a specialist in florid French opera including Manon, Mireille, Faust, Thais, the heroines "Hoffmann," and Marie in Bizet's "Ivan IV". Millions of science fiction cinema fans know her as the voice of the diva "Plavalaguna" in Luc Besson's 1997 film "The Fifth Element."

THE MUSIC: One of Bizet's eight operas is “La Jolie Fille de Perth” which premiered in Paris in 1867, and is rarely performed. The title role, Catherine, was written for the world famous soprano Christine Nilsson (in 1883 she was Marguerite in "Faust" at the inauguration of the Metropolitan in New York), but due to delays in production, she was replaced by Jeanne Devries, a young soprano from New Orleans. The work is a sentimental melodrama and includes one of the shortest mad scenes ever written. Catherine's haunting ballade "Echo viens" comes at the end of the work after various plot confusions. The aria builds off a simple folk-like tune into ever widening leaps to high suspensions -- illustrating Catherine's state of mind.