Opera Quotes · Page 17

I conclude that the Wagnerian operas which are already in the repertoire, and other masterworks as well, stand in no further need…

— Franz Liszt

When you are confronted with an opera, you have to keep an eye on everything: the musicians, the chorus, the ballet, the…

— Placido Domingo

But Opera Man, I go, 'Oh, crap! Why didn't I think of that?' Because I could sing fake opera pretty good.

— Jon Lovitz

I keep to a minimum dialect, in-jokes about football (soccer) teams and soap opera characters, so as not to lose North American…

— Peter Robinson

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, he sings.

— Anonymous

The catalogue of miseries seems to cry out for commercial spots and a station break: the stuff of noonday soap opera.

— Stefan Kanfer

I'd love to have the time to learn to sing opera properly rather than bellowing half-formed fragments of melody in exuberant moments.

— Tim O'Reilly

If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, you'd get people going: 'Oh, we should make 'Mother' into an opera, it's what…

— Goldie

You can't tell the story of a 13-year-old boy who knows every lyric to 'Phantom of the Opera' without also referencing how…

— Tim Federle

I had the working class ethic. I wanted to make a living and there weren't many opportunities for an opera singer in…

— Jane McDonald

For a while, I couldn't decide whether or not I should pursue singing in the opera or acting. And I'm glad that…

— Christoph Waltz

“Exposing impressionable young men to the glories of opera on their first evening at home with you tended to put the kiss…

— Anthony McDonald

Excepting a religious ceremonial, there is no occasion where greater dignity of manner is required of ladies and gentlemen both, than in…

— Emily Post

When you say you're doing an opera, it's like when you're a seven-year-old and say, 'I'm off to Washington, Dad.' You kind…

— Tom Waits

If you are going to take me a to a musical, you'd better give me three songs that I'm gonna like. Nobody…

— Dennis DeYoung

An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and…

— Joseph Addison

For a long time I found the celebrities of modern painting and poetry ridiculous. I loved absurd pictures, fanlights, stage scenery, mountebanks…

— Arthur Rimbaud

Well, basically there are two sorts of opera," said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on…

— Terry Pratchett

Flawless . . . Tightly choreographed . . . Shipstead gains entry into exclusive worlds and trains her opera glasses on private…

— Maureen Corrigan

Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut…

— Terry Pratchett

I've had my ups and downs, and I definitely have a sense - in America, especially - that once you've made your…

— Rufus Wainwright

Disgrace is a subtle, multi-layered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose…

— Paul Bailey

I went out to testify in front of the Ways and Means Committee out in Congress on open free trade to China.…

— Jesse Ventura

We've always told stories through music and rhythm and movement, and what we know as western opera has only been around for…

— Jake Heggie

People love a good scandal. We love a good freakin' scandal and a good soap opera.

— Lana

One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend to hear it a second time.

— Gioachino Rossini

“He was a throwback to a lady's old romantic notion of how a man should act. [Giovanni Tempesta]”

— Vincent B. Chip LoCoco

I don't like the word rock opera, but I'm trying to write on that level that's reserved for plays still, or novels.

— Lou Reed

The inventor of the modern foundation garment that we women wear today was a German scientist and opera lover by the name…

— Bette Midler

I feel like it's a real shame that my generation doesn't make an appearance at the opera.

— James Gray

I don't think an opera house is ever a place that can make you entirely happy.

— Bernard Haitink

So my methodological approach is to draw on many different features in highlighting different facets of the novella (and the opera and…

— Philip Kitcher

H is for Hardware store: I'd rather go to the hardware store than the opera. And I like the opera.

— Marlene Dietrich

I think that opera in Europe is 30 years ahead of America. There is a broader range of material presented to the…

— Robert Wilson

My dad became a soap opera actor, and I was an extra in a skating rink scene on the soap. I didn't…

— Jennifer Aniston

People perceive opera and classical as elitist - I disagree. I've always tried to mix the two, make it more accessible.

— Katherine Jenkins

Grand opera is the most powerful of stage appeals and that almost entirely through the beauty of music.

— John Philip Sousa

We consider Monteverdi the first composer of opera. There was someone before, but everything started with Monteverdi.

— Cecilia Bartoli

If I weren't reasonably placid, I don't think I could cope with this sort of life. To be a diva, you've got…

— Joan Sutherland

[Opera] does not call so much for an imaginative ear as for an imaginative eye, an eye which can see beyond little…

— George Richard Marek