Able Quote by Jessye Norman

The very beautiful and very touching thing about opera singers is they are very willing to do whatever you want. Unlike actors, who constantly…

— Simon McBurney

The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role,…

— Maria Jeritza

An opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level,…

— Andrea Bocelli

Opera is an extremely disciplined art form, and every excess a singer indulges in has a direct effect on the voice.

— Beverly Sills

Opera? Just what the world needs: more fat women screaming.

— Peter Boyle

I never socialized with singers. It's very dangerous if you work with opera... I don't think that in 30 years a singer has entered…

— Rudolf Bing

There are a lot of aspiring singers who are not paid attention to because they don't look like a fashion model.

— Linda Ronstadt

The idea is not to have one great singer surrounded by a bunch of nit wits. When the others are good, too, that's when…

— Richard Bonynge

You can't do opera when already from the 10th row you can only see little dolls on the stage. In such an enormous space…

— Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

There's a lot that goes into training, singers to eventually become performers. There's, projection, uh, which in many cases the artist was never concerned…

— Cholly Atkins

In opera, there is always too much singing.

— Claude Debussy

Opera: I like it, except for all those howling sopranos and caterwauling tenors. (Why can't tenors sing like men?)

— Edward Abbey