Every aria or opera selection was made with dramatic intention; Larraín says the soundtrack is “the hidden map” of the movie.

Oddly, after swooning along with giant aria after giant aria, I left the theater fixating on one of Larraín’s smallest sound-design choices.

Ms McGhee said she was so worried she would never be able to sing again that she performed arias from all her dream roles the night before her surgery.

Composed without arias or set pieces, Dargomyzhsky’s score illuminates Pushkin’s words and paves the way for the truly Russian opera, however grander, of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

When the personification of Mandrex asks her why she’s allowing him to make a film about the end of her life, Maria tells him that she wants an aria as part of her third act.