If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.

I was trying to do something that seemed very natural and easy but which bridged that gulf between the singing voice and the speaking voice.

Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.

There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way.

If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!

It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.