I listen to archival and historic recordings. I love watching singers. I learned a lot from watching videos.

For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style.

I think opera has gained a kind of glamorous appeal. It's a live performance that aligns all of the arts, and when it is represented in the media, in film in particular, it is presented as something that is really a special event, whether it's a great date or something that's just hugely romantic.

I was always a very good student.

I cannot imagine a more satisfying calling than my own: beauty, humanity, and history every day, combined with the cathartic joy of singing.

Music enabled me as a fragile young person to give voice to emotions I could barely name, and how it enables me to give my voice the unique and mysterious power to speak to others.

The student's job is to stay open-minded, to quell the knee-jerk defensiveness we all possess in the face of suggestions for improvement, and to maintain patience when faced with a process that is often slow, confusing, and frustrating.