Visconti "approached opera only after considerable successful experience as a director and designer in the spoken theatre and as a film director[...] Visconti’s career in the opera house coincided with and fostered the renewed interest in neglected works by the leading 19th-century Italian composers. His profound love and knowledge of music, his visual taste, his familiarity with the styles of various periods, gave his finest productions an unrivalled authenticity. His influence on opera production in Italy and elsewhere was vast. Before him, most Italian opera houses were content with routine productions, in a tired tradition; with his insistence on the individual character of each work, he renewed, indeed revolutionized, the approach to opera staging." (William Weaver, New Grove Online.)