Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Doctor

6. Night Life Of A Night Light

Much to the chagrin of Neelix and company in Demon, the Doctor was a "night owl". Don't snore whilst Puccini is playing! Not content with merely listening to opera, Voyager's EMH was proficient at singing it. One question most often asked of Robert Picardo is 'Did he do his own…?' The answer to which is yes… in the main.

Picardo was, in fact, largely responsible for the Doctor's musical interest in the first place. As the actor noted in Star Trek: Voyager: A Celebration:

I suggested to Jeri Taylor that the Doctor be an opera fan. […] I thought it would be funny that a character with no emotional palette at all would be a fan of the most passionate form of human expression. Why would this machine be listening to opera?

As for the actual singing, only in Virtuoso did a professional tenor — Agostino Castagnola — take over to perform Verdi's distinctly challenging 'Dio, che nell'alma infondere,' and Vincenzo de Crescenzo's 'Rondine al nido'. Picardo did the rest — operatic or otherwise — throughout Voyager's run… synapses blazing…

Most recently, in 2025, Picardo 're-enacted' the Verdi duet alongside operatic tenor Arturo Chacón Cruz at the Vienna Synchron Stage, with live orchestra conducted by composer, and Voyager fan, Steffen Schmidt. The pair also gave a very special performance of 'La Donna è mobile,' including alternate, though not entirely illogical, lyrics.