Christopher Webber writes:

>It seems a curious experience to find that staging actually *lessens*
>the impact of these great and essentially theatrical masterpieces.
>Most audience members find precisely the reverse, especially when
>it comes to the music theatre of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle" may be a notable exception.  In the liner
notes to Solti's London recording thereof, it is described as "one of
those rare works which can benefit enormously from being heard on a
recording rather than being seen in the theatre; for any visual stage
picture, however evocative, will necessarily limit the imagination, and
this is a work where the associative power of a free imagination is
essential."

 - seb