In preparing my thesis, I have had the pleasure of collecting testimonies from colleagues such as Placido Domingo but also from singing teachers and musicologists. The entire course of study has confirmed what I already thought, that the value and meaning of opera singing, at the beginning of the third millennium, remain intact.

A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform, but it was one of the few places that I've visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there.

To sing opera, one needs two things: the voice and the passion - and above all, the passion.

I like reading... French, Russian classics - Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert. I also like Hemingway, Virginia Woolf.

Very often, I recognize many, many defects, so I try to improve myself every day. I think my voice is very communicative.

It is not Christian to go against someone. I am in favour of life.

Some years ago I gave a concert in the mountains with snow all around, and that was much colder.