Don't you think it astonishing that, at 58, I am still working at improving my career?

But enough joking. I am singing. This is all my life.

What is sad is not to be able to do today what you have done in your youth. But what is good is to remember that - when you were able - you did it to the best of your ability.

The voice collects and translates your bad physical health, your emotional worries, your personal troubles.

But I won't deprive myself of singing opera as long as my voice follows.

I then realized that I could never be satisfied again with the mere natural charm of my voice, that I had to constantly paint when singing, melting all the colors, expressing reds and blacks that had to be less primary but bursting with subtly colored combinations.

The public made me and then encouraged me for many years, and my future even now depends upon it.