"It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of course, if they had gotten the original company to have done it, it would have been very good"

In this quote, Cab Calloway is expressing his frustration with the difficulty of catching the essence of an opera through photography. He thinks that the photographers did not do justice to the opera and that it did not equate well in the photographs. He likewise mentions that he does not blame the Gershwins, the creators of the opera, for eliminating it from the general public eye. Calloway suggests that if the initial company had actually been associated with the photography, the outcome would have been much better. This quote highlights the difficulties of catching the real essence of a live efficiency through a fixed medium like photography.