“Where are the great films of opera? Yet to be made. The form has never conquered what might be called the tongue-and-teeth problem. While it makes perfect sense within the opera house that everything is sung, when transferred onto film, the opera illusion often breaks down. Suddenly one is wrenched from a world where it’s normal for people to say hello and good night and I love you in song into a world where you notice huge gaping mouths, swelling diaphragms, quivering tongues and glistening teeth. And even when the films are dubbed, and the singers attempt to look as if they’re speaking, there’s an uncanny sense that the voice is emerging from a hole not big enough to produce it.”