America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.

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 find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.

The story of Willie Stark fascinated me because it was tackling the story of a man who outwardly has all the success one could possibly want and who is destroyed by his personal demons.

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

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

I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.