If I have to hold a note for a long time, I imagine it as moving and spinning, for the note has to have life. In a way, a singer actually refreshes a note with every beat that it's held.

Singers can also get away with a lot based on youth, strength and enthusiasm, only to find ten years later that what was once just a niggling problem has brought their careers to an end.

Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year-and those are days you won't be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.

I learned so many roles so quickly as a young singer, I thought it was time to come back to them and make them better - deeper, more nuanced.

You finally have to learn to pull all the different kinds of teaching and training and coaching together on you own, so that your voice and body and technique for a sound that is consistent and solid.

I have a certain image that's more classic, and I'm happy to stay out of the fray.

Very few opera singers in history have been able to cross into popular music.