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Igor Toronyi-Lalic on the important role opera played in the early days of cinema

In 1978, the Swiss impresario Rolf Liebermann picked the veteran American director Joseph Losey to direct a film adaptation of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. At that point they hadn’t yet met or spoken but Liebermann, having passed over Franco Zeffirelli and Patrice Chéreau, must have felt pretty confidant that Losey was the right man for the job.

When they finally came together, Liebermann was horrified. Losey had never heard Don Giovanni and considered Verdi and Wagner boring. To prove to him it wasn’t, Liebermann dragged Losey to the Paris Opéra where he was director. Before the lights were out, Losey was asleep.

By the end of the year, Losey had produced one of the most enduring and brilliant filmed operas in cinematic history, in a muscular version of Don Giovanni, set against the cool Palladian magnificence of Vicenza. It showed what opera and film could do, even in the most unpromising circumstances.