Popular quotes about Opera! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto. One of my closest friends is a composer, Paul Moravec, and a few years ago, Paul and I were at lunch, and I said to him, "you really have to write an opera." So, he says very casually to me, "I'll do it if you write the libretto." Well, little did I know that the within a couple of years we would end up getting a commission from the Santa Fe Opera to write an opera together, "The Letter," which turned out to be the most successful commissioned opera in the history of the Santa Fe Opera.
Terry TeachoutI was interested in opera and it seemed to me that the only possible theatre for contemporary opera would be television. So I started working towards a kind of television kind of opera.
Robert AshleyDuring the 1970s and 1980s, the popular television soap opera As The World Turns portrayed sunrise during the opening credits and sunset during the closing credits... The soap-opera sunrise showed the sun moving toward the left as it rose rather than to the right. They obviously had gotten a piece of film showing a sunset and played it in reverse... Had they called their local astrophysicists, any one of us might have recommended that if they needed to save money, they could have shown the sunset in a mirror before they showed it running backward.
Neil deGrasse TysonPremiering 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.
Rufus WainwrightI still the love classic period, but also the baroque period, and even 17th-Century music such as the music of Monteverdi. He's one of the greatest opera composers. He was the one who really started the opera.
Cecilia BartoliI'm the only person in my family who can't sing. My grandmother was an opera singer and all of her kids were in church five days a week - or between church and vocal lessons at Carnegie Hall. But my mom had her first studio experience recording on my album. She's used to having to fill the room, so she had to adjust to the microphone and not sing opera.
Le1fThe taxpayers cannot be relied upon to support performing arts such as opera. As a taxpayer, I am forced to admit that I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera.
Dave BarryIf you approach an opera as though it were something that always went a certain way, that's what you get. I approach an opera as though I didn't know it.
Sarah CaldwellAs americans I think it's harder for us to have a relationship with opera because the access to it is so limited.
Jacob HashimotoI've been singing my whole life, since I was a kid; but never formally as a career. I did it in plays when I was younger, and I sang all styles of music: everything from Italian opera to blues.
Brittany MurphyI am a person. I am not a soap opera. There is never going to be a next [tabloid] installment about my life because my own stuff is my own stuff.
Kate WinsletIt was an emergency!" Seth blurted. "Read my lips - emergency reading - not some demented idea of fun. If I was starving, I would eat asparagus. If somebody held a gun to my head, I would watch a soap opera. And to save Fablehaven, I would read a book, okay, are you happy?" You had best be careful, Seth," Grandma warned. "The love of reading can be contagious." I just lost my appetite," he declared.
Brandon MullGoing to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.
Hannah MoreI was 11 when a teacher suggested to my parents that they should send me to drama classes to curb my disruptive ways in the classroom. The next Saturday I was acting, and thereafter it became a ritual of my youth to see a show at the Belvoir on Sundays and, if I was lucky, another at the Opera House on Monday after school.
David WenhamIronically, that was quite a bit of the appeal of Rumours. It's equally interesting on a musical level and as a soap opera.
Lindsey BuckinghamIn a way, being an opera singer is like being a very romantic sixteen-year-old who falls in love with great passion and conviction every month.
Renee FlemingTheatre and opera were always the twin kingdoms that I felt I had to conquer, because they were my parents' favorites.
Diane PaulusI never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager.
Edgar Allan PoeOpera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.
Rufus WainwrightI loved to sing and I loved to act, and I didnโt want to continue opera because I wanted to act.
Kelli O'HaraI guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me. I don't feel it in myself but from an outsider's point of view, I can see they must be thinking, "Who the hell does this guy think he is?" But recently I've been thinking, okay, a white guy can't sing soul, but would a black person be made exempt from singing opera because it's not a tradition that belongs to them? It's the same kind of argument.
Jamie LidellI'm not going to spend two years on a film or four years on an opera if I don't feel like I can put my own self into it. That doesn't mean it has to be about myself.
Julie TaymorWhen you are up close to an opera singer, hearing this incredible volume of noise coming from a human being - its beyond belief.
Eve BestI had a lot of classical influences. I had classical music and opera and literature, but I also liked sleaze. And putting it together, sleaze and glamour, it just made sense to me.
Rick OwensOpera is an extremely disciplined art form, and every excess a singer indulges in has a direct effect on the voice.
Beverly SillsI listen to lots of music, especially Bach, opera (all periods), German lieder, chamber music, and rock, old and new. I can't listen to music while I write. It's too absorbing.
Cheryl MendelsonFor me, you say the words 'concept record,' and the first thing I think of is theater or the opera or something.
Chester BenningtonI know that my passion is for opera, but sometimes I like also to sing songs, because there are many beautiful melodies.
Andrea BocelliWhen you decide to become an opera singer, it's a commitment that allows nothing else to interfere. Even your family - and I have a young daughter - has to take second place.
Lucy LawlessI think that both musicals and opera have a capacity to get to an inner emotional landscape.
Julie TaymorWhen the story is good enough, people can watch something three times the length of an opera.
Kevin SpaceyEven from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.
Rick RiordanI was singing when I was five years old. My sister and I both had the talent from mom and dad, and she was in opera and I was into pop and uh, rhythm and blues, anything, I was about a four octave singer.
Carl GardnerOne of the problems that we face through the media attention that these artists receive is that there has been an awful lot of talk about opera and classical music being elite and being for an elitist group.
Lesley GarrettLove in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrama.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of BlessingtonMy family was very supportive of whatever I wanted because my grandfather was an opera singer. My dad's dad. So my dad has an appreciation for the arts, and he let me choose my own path.
Tony HaleAs I read Mann in German for the first time, the full achievement - both literary and philosophical - of Death in Venice struck me forcefully, so that, when I was invited to give the Schoff Lectures at Columbia, the opportunity to reflect on the contrasts between novella and opera seemed irresistible.
Philip KitcherAn opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level, you need to refrain from activities so as to be able to express this power.
Andrea BocelliOld Americana vintage gangster stuff has a fantastical feel; it feels less dirty in a way. It feels like the opera of crime.
Shia LaBeoufMy father, my uncles, my aunts, from my father's side and my mother's side... they were all professional musicians. My father was a concert master, he took me to a lot of rehearsals, concerts, performances, opera, ballet. For me, that was life.
Lalo SchifrinMy mom was an opera singer, and she gave up her career to raise a family. But she also taught my sisters how to sing.
Tika SumpterI have sat through an Italian opera, til, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded street, to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!
Charles Lamb