"If you look at the opera without the Prologue, then you just have all these strange people, and you're in something like Desperate Housewives," Carsen says.
Photograph: /Screengrab 4.39pm BST So Marcel Kittel becomes the first rider in 38 years to win three of the first four stages (and the first since 1909 to win three out of four without a prologue).
But 2001: A Space Odyssey turned out to be an unusually long film, even without the prologue, and so the 1966 footage was never used and is now lost.
The newest theatrical re-release, occasioned by Shenson's sale of the film to Miramax, is as close to the correct one as has been seen on the big screen since 1964: it uses the Rutan restoration, without the prologue, and with the mono soundtrack retouched with some light reverberation during the concert sequence.
Using negatives for all but two reels and an original duplicating print for the rest, Mr. Rutan produced a remarkably crisp, clean print with a mono soundtrack and without the spurious prologue.
In a stunning prologue without words -- only sounds and voices and whispers inside her head -- Martha Plimpton, a visualization of panic as Hedda, tries desperately to bolt across the narrow space in front of the stage, darting from wall to wall, her every move thwarted by those taunting interior sounds.
But the central issue remains: How can one claim that the past will be prologue without a scintilla of apparent doubt?
It is difficult to guess how well the relationships among these characters would have been ascertained without Mr. Barenboim's prologue.
As the prologue to "Songs Without Words" explains, Sarabeth grew up in Liz's family after her own mother committed suicide.
The prologue was assembled without the involvement or knowledge of the film's director Richard Lester, who subsequently expressed his disapproval of the addition.
