Riddle: A mother’s child, a father’s child, yet nobody’s son? Who am I?
I think of opera as the love child between classical music and theater. Though she can have attributes of either parent, to assign opera as exclusively her mother or father’s child would be to minimize her own potential and unique place in the world.
I can understand a lack of interest film makers might have in directing a form of theater performance that is not based in realism. That being said, if there were ever an effort in applying cinematic principles to operatic performance, here is a list of operas I would love to see interpreted by and produced with the aesthetic of the following film directors. This is the posthumous edition, pure fantasy.
Fritz Lang directs Lulu, by Alban Berg
Alfred Hitchcock directs The Exterminating Angel, by Thomas Adès
Federico Fellini directs Falstaff, by Giuseppi Verdi
Buster Keaton directs Così fan tute, by W.A. Mozart
Orson Welles directs The Rake’s Progress, by Igor Stravinsky
Akira Kurasawa directs Boris Godunow, by Modest Mussorgsky
Mike Nichols directs Don Pasquale, by Gaetano Donizetti
Stanley Kubrick directs The Turn of the Screw, by Benjamin Britten
Robert Altman directs The Ghosts of Versailles, by John Corgliano
Jean Renoir directs Carmen, by Georges Bizet