The Musical as Drama

make movie performers appear to be singing (they aren’t).
There is nothing odd about this in a film. On a stage, however,
lip-synching is a scandal when it is used (this has happened),
and dancers cannot be edited. The reason is that film musicals
operate on an aesthetic system different from that of the stage,
a system that thrives on the omniscience of the camera and
brings all other elements of the performance under its control.
It is an integrated form, unlike the stage musical, and it is one
of the true inheritors of the Wagnerian aesthetic.

178 CHAPTER SEVEN