I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

Oh blessed a thousand times the peasant who is born, eats and dies without anybody bothering about his affairs.

The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.

I deny that either singers or conductors can "create" or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.

Stupid criticism and still more stupid praise.

Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform.