With Cold Sassy Tree having its first production, I saw no necessity to do anything other than produce it with the correct setting.

It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.

Film is shot in fragments, and the same moments can be shot again and again until the director is satisfied.

When we were trying to get the money together for the film, one reason that was consistently given for not investing in it was that everyone kept saying no one could direct it well enough to entertain an audience for 100 minutes essentially watching three people chatting in the kitchen.

It is essential to do everything possible to attract young people to opera so they can see that it is not some antiquated art form but a repository of the most glorious music and drama that man has created.