Although our strongest emotions leaned toward the more traditional performances, we also encouraged a reimagining of contemporary opera using the talents of current lyricists and creatives. In fact, our first date was at the Lyric Opera ('Tosca'), and I now serve on the Board of Directors. Roger and I bonded over, among other things, our love of opera. This must be the most delightful film ever made from an opera.' We're supposed to be conscious of watching a performance, and yet at some level Bergman also wants Mozart's fantasy to work as a story, a preposterous tale, and it does.

Bergman lets us see how the special effects work, he gives us backstage glimpses of the players hurrying to meet cues and relaxing during the intermission, and we're reminded of the many other backstage scenes in his films. To film it, he decided to stay in the period, to approach the work head on and in its own spirit as a sort of spooky, funny bedtime story.

In 1976, Ingmar Bergman directed a screen version of the opera, which received four stars from my late husband Roger Ebert, who wrote, 'His 'Magic Flute' is directed with a cheerful relish for its fairy-tale adventures, its young lovers and sinister sorcerers and improbable special effects.

Magic flute lyric opera