The duo's first work in the radio musical genre, the album is built around an imaginary visit to Hollywood by Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman in the mid-1950s.

[6] She thought Sparks would be suitable for the format: "They are a bit extravagant; they have a larger-than-life quality, and above all, they make music that is colourful enough for it not to feel like you miss a visual component.

Although the music had been completed, the film failed to materialise, an experience that coloured their portrayal of the studio head in The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

[14][15][16] Described as a "dark fairy tale" by Stephen Dalton in The Times – "The Wizard of Oz meets The Truman Show, with a light sprinkling of Life On Mars" – it is based on imaginary events in the career of Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman.

[14][16] The studio's executives, who give Bergman a lavish welcome, are desperate to entice him to stay in Hollywood and make movies for them, the American way: "We're not hicks, but we must deliver kicks.

[14][15] Unable to get an international line to call Sweden, he tries to escape on foot, pursued by hotel staff, police cars and helicopters "like an actor in a bad, big-budget Hollywood action film".

[14][15] He evades his captors and reaches the seashore, where he prays for deliverance and at last meets the angelic figure of Greta Garbo, who guides him "home to somewhere monochrome, but somewhere you will be a certain kind of free".

[11][19][20] The album mixes a variety of musical styles, from classical piano and opera, with full orchestral backing, to polka, vaudeville, jazz, pop and rock, and features both song and spoken-word elements.

[3][22] The music references the band's own discography at various points, evoking echoes of their earlier records – "sly winks to fans, each with their favourite era of Sparks in mind".

[16] The BBC review stated that the album was "steeped in the same arch humour and orchestral sweep that guided the likes of 2006's Hello Young Lovers and last year's Exotic Creatures of The Deep", blending "jaunty songs and rib-tickling tangents with a coherent narrative".

[16] BBC 6 Music and presenter Stuart Maconie hosted the English version's première in London on 28 October 2009, followed by a Q&A session with the Mael brothers.

[8] In 2022, a remaster of the English album was issued on double vinyl, CD and digital as part of the "21st Century Sparks" collection on BMG.

[33] Craig Carson in PopMatters commented that the Sparks' "wry humor and willingness to experiment with different formats continue to stretch the limits of pop music in ways many other acts simply do not attempt.

[22] The Times said it was "a very Sparksian undertaking – painstaking and slightly ludicrous – to make a musical about an art-house film director, with a very complicated plot, for the radio (even Rick Wakeman's King Arthur on Ice had something to look at)."

It said the orchestral arrangements by Ron Mael were "great, actually, recalling the skyscraper bustle of Bernstein and the triumphant fanfares of Michael Nyman", and stated that "the central concept – pursue your own idea of art, regardless of whether anyone will buy it – seems to be their rule of thumb, too.

"[21] The review by Stephen Dalton, also in The Times, found the "modernist musical backdrop" dominated by "electro-orchestral fragments" "less seductive" and, "despite plenty of arch and witty lyrics", regretted the scarcity of "memorable melodies or fully realised songs".

[15] Dalton concluded that the work was "not wholly successful, perhaps, but still an alluringly barmy and glamorous affair", and a "fascinating folly from two enduringly inventive oddballs".

"[29] Andy Gill in The Independent gave The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman a maximum rating of five stars and included the record among his 20 albums of the year: "Sharply scripted, with that sly, knowing touch so typical of Sparks, it's also scored with scrupulous intelligence, the arrangements drawing on a range of apt influences, from Kurt Weill to jazz, pop and rock, and the orchestrations ingeniously duplicitous, wistful and sinister, as the action dictates.

[8] They confirmed in a September 2010 interview on Michael Silverblatt's Bookworm show that Maddin and actor Jason Schwartzman were on board, and that they were in the process of seeking funding for the project.

[35][36] The world premiere of the live musical took place on 25 June at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival, starring Ron and Russell Mael from Sparks, Maddin, Finnish actor Peter Franzén as Bergman, Ann Magnuson as Greta Garbo, with Rebecca Sjöwall, Katie Puckrik, and Tammy Glover reprising their roles from the album.

[42] Russell Mael mentioned the idea again in a 2020 The Quietus interview, saying that the puppet animation format might be very beautiful and lend itself to portraying the story's fantastical, action-based finale.

[43] He added that working with the narrative format of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman had led them to write the Annette musical, which by then had turned into an actual film directed by Leos Carax, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard – a development Sparks were very happy about.

[43] In the liner notes to the 2022 re-issue, Ron Mael restated their ambition to make a stop motion feature with Wallace, adding: "The use of "widescreen and technicolor" as descriptions of a purely aural work are terms we would now like to apply in a more literal way to a film.