Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.

At this stage in my career, I don't have to take any big risks. You want to take a calculated risk, not one that leads to people saying 'yes, but there was that one time when she made that big mistake.' It's always a shame when that happens, especially if you've gotten by for decades without anything hugely tragic.

In a sense, it's less about seeing how high up I can vault than about seeing how deeply I can explore my potential...Ambition for me is about the willingness to work, the ability to mine my own soul fearlessly.

My philosophy is that the people around us are there doing as much work if not more work behind the scenes and they're the last people you would ever be unkind to, so I hope I'm not a diva off stage.

It is our responsibility to learn how to speak to an audience that is less informed about music, to give it a reason to want to come and see us instead of going to the movies.

My worry is that opera will become an historic art form as opposed to a living, breathing thing.