Graham shot a massive 120 hours of footage using three cameras during early rehearsals and up to six cameras when the production reached the Opera House. This extensive coverage pays off for one dramatic moment - caused by a slow lift. During a tense dress rehearsal, Carden misses her stage entry when the lift rumbles down instead of up. The missed entry stops the dress rehearsal, which causes Scottish conductor Roderick Brydon to melt down and insist the audience be ejected from the Opera Theatre. Carden gets fired up when Brydon even banishes her assistant, who had been providing notes on her performance.
Nerves flare all round, which adds to the tensions on opening night.
For those who missed it at the festival, Tosca will be screened on the ABC in August. The Sex Pistols also knew how to throw a tantrum. Julien Temple's equally entertaining The Filth and the Fury looks at the band's rise to tabloid notoriety in Britain and eventual disintegration on an American tour. It includes concert footage, news clips, animation, interviews with the surviving band members and videos by some of the most forgettable rock stars of the '70s to show how the band sprang from Britain's social dislocation with an anger that galvanised the punk movement. For the interviews, Temple uses the strange device of filming the band members in shadow.