Some of the songs and themes of "Stella" had begun as part of an operatic stage show titled "Snowball" that Meier had started developing in 1983. He told the US magazine "Trouser Press" that the outline of the show was "Boris Blank plays a medieval magician/musician whose songs have an almost Rasputin-like influence over his listeners. The powers that be consider him so dangerous that they banish him to a sealed-in mountain cave. So that he doesn't go mad from sensory deprivation, he must resort to the powerful imagery of his music. The show gets its title from those little water-and-scenery filled trinkets that 'snow' when shaken. The magician uses one of these 'snowballs' as a sort of surrogate crystal ball." In the end Blank felt he was not a good enough actor to play the lead role, and Meier abandoned plans to put on "Snowball" as a stage show due to costs. After reworking the plot and changing the title to "Lightmaker", the project eventually appeared as a film in 2001.