Opera Quotes

My worry is that opera will become an historic art form as opposed to a living, breathing thing.

I was constantly being pushed toward a European ideal of what it means to be a classical or opera singer, let's say in the Renata Tebaldi mode. I reject that.

I was interested in opera and it seemed to me that the only possible theatre for contemporary opera would be television. So I started working towards a kind of television kind of opera.

There was something in the bel canto, not just opera, but a certain style of Italian singing that I responded to deeply.

I studied with Stella Adler and I didn't like the representational aspect of most opera singers. Most of the opera singers had not a false, but over theatrical way of presenting.

I don't like rock opera with back beats.

For more than 13,000 days on the run, my life was a soap opera.

I never socialized with singers. It's very dangerous if you work with opera... I don't think that in 30 years a singer has entered my apartment.

Writing an opera and premiering in England, you could say I was going right into the eye of the storm and I came out successfully. A little tattered and bruised, but so what, I made it.

Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.

I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money.

I've always gravitated towards opera, and the Royal Opera House is quite possibly the greatest opera house on earth.

I am under no illusion that I will ever be the greatest opera composer in the world, with Wagner and Verdi and Strauss before me. I think my work could fit very nicely into musicals, though.

Prima Donna is my kind of love song to opera but it's not the full experience.

The operas I listen to aren't in English, and I want to listen to my opera after I'm done with it. I want to have the desire to play it on the stereo. To me, the language is part of the mystery.

That's why we began calling it the daily soap opera, or it's just the place on radio and TV where Democrat Party agenda is advanced. But it isn't media.

I was nostalgic even as a young man. Preferred listening to Opera not Bing Crossby.

A resolution to attend theatres or operas is an absolute disqualification for Holy Orders.

I'm very musically inclined. My parents were opera singers. As a young child, I could hear operas and I knew if they were sad, or if they reminded me of something, or they brought back a memory.

Opera is everything rolled into one - music, theater, the dance, color and voices and theatrical illusions.

I’m turning into an old woman. Might as well start knitting and bitching about soap operas, gas prices, and rude drivers.” – Sundown

How many more are there like you? (Maggie) Enough to make the cast of a Cecil B. DeMille film look like a two-man opera. (Wren)

I'd like to direct more operas.

I am an opera virgin; I'd far prefer to see a musical such as 'Guys and Dolls.

My favorite type of music to sing would be between R and B and opera.

The great opera composers were so good at their job, that the whole genre came to be built around the concept of the composer's vision.

Even when I rehearse down in the bowels of the Metropolitan Opera, you can't help but think why The Phantom of the Opera was inspired by what happens in the bowels of the opera house.

What's difficult to understand about German opera? It's always the same. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl gets devoured by horrible winged creature with claws.

Dumb luck brought on the move from business to acting. I had moved to New York when I was 23, in the year 2000. On a lark, I went to audition for a soap opera.

Dedication: My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here.

My mom was an opera singer, and she gave up her career to raise a family. But she also taught my sisters how to sing.

I've done a lot of operas. I've probably done more different kind of operas than anybody.

I never liked opera growing up. I always liked chamber music or solo music even more than orchestral music.

My family was very supportive of whatever I wanted because my grandfather was an opera singer. My dad's dad. So my dad has an appreciation for the arts, and he let me choose my own path.

It's the perfect environment for prayer. Chanting in Greek is like a beautiful opera, but way better.

I'm not glamorous, I don't have a look, I don't know anything about opera, I have no Italian, and I'm too old.

In the opera we call love, the libretto is almost nothing.

I am a living soap opera.

And my singing, I don't think I could sing Wagner or opera, but I could probably carry a tune. I was in a musical once, but it was never performed.

I love classical music and often listen to symphonies or opera in the morning.

I don't find much influence in opera. It was such a different part of me.

I like your opera - I think I will set it to music

Stay away from the underground lake I implore, The Siren will see you are heard of no more.

Have they known scorn like youFive cellars down?

Music helps to forgetThis forsaken tomb, That is my abodeCellars downFar belowUnder the ground, ...

Monsieur, you must be mad!Box Five can never be hadFor money, love or the world ...

You want to feel that you belong to something higher, to something even beyond this universe, then go to the opera!

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication. Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation. Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in to the power of the music of the night.

The Phantom is not famous for forgiveness.

I beg you, help me, in angelic charity, Pray my efforts will reflect your mastery!