I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean, you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier, people die for them, people kill for them.

Once illness strikes, you realize there's not a lot of time for you to do what you really need to do. And there's no time like the present.

Prima Donna is my kind of love song to opera but it's not the full experience.

Certainly in terms of my life - anybody's life - you go through death, childbirth and marriage, glory and defeat, and so on.

Premiering a new opera is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do, and opening nights of any opera are always pretty stressful.

I could always escape into this demi-monde of homosexuality, which I feel really indebted to. It stopped me being a 'mummy's boy.'

Somebody curse the light And take me far away from myself