Opera Quotes

• An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.

  Maria Callas

  Long, Imagination, House

  88 Copy quote

• No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

  W. H. Auden

  Funny, Music, People

  Quoted in Time, 29 Dec 1961.

  67 Copy quote

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• I have always believed that opera is a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts.

  Franco Zeffirelli

  Art, Work, Hands

  International Herald Tribune, March 21, 1990.

  65 Copy quote

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• I would just like to say that opera is no longer about fat people in breastplates shattering wine glasses.

  Lesley Garrett

  Wine, Glasses, People

  "Soprano soundtrack" by Will Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. December 19, 2003.

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• Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

  David Ogilvy

  Writing, Men, Agency

  David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

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• In opera, there is always too much singing.

  Claude Debussy

  Funny, Music, Piano

  "Debussy". Book by Paul Holmes, 1989.

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• Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.

  Moliere

  Funny, Humorous, Men

  26 Copy quote

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

  Cecilia Bartoli

  Firsts, Composer

  46 Copy quote

• The first rule in opera is the first rule in life: see to everything yourself

  Nellie Melba

  Art, Firsts, Career Success

  1925 Melodies and Memories.

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• If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.

  Gaston Leroux

  Men, Hatred, Phantoms

  52 Copy quote

• The banging and slamming and booming and crashing were something beyond belief. [On Lohengrin]

  Mark Twain

  Belief, Banging

  Mark Twain (2015). “A Tramp Abroad: Mark Twain's Collections”, p.29, 谷月社

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• It is essential to do everything possible to attract young people to opera so they can see that it is not some antiquated art form but a repository of the most glorious music and drama that man has created.

  Bruce Beresford

  Music, Art, Drama

  46 Copy quote

• Even in today's opera world, the position of the black tenor is problematic.

  Bobby Short

  Black, World, Today

  7 Copy quote

• I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Sarcastic, Suicide

  Mark Twain (1924). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.175, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• Let us be clear: I take ten times more money for a concert than for an opera performance.

  Placido Domingo

  Concerts, More Money, Clear

  7 Copy quote

• Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.

  Tony Curtis

  Song, Singers, Able

  15 Copy quote

• Above all, I am an opera singer. This is how people will remember me.

  Luciano Pavarotti

  People, Singers, Remember

  7 Copy quote

• But I won't deprive myself of singing opera as long as my voice follows.

  Placido Domingo

  Sight, Voice, Long

  8 Copy quote

• Later, I even appeared in a Rock Opera with Richard Gere.

  Barry Bostwick

  Rocks

  7 Copy quote

• I have never heard enough classical music to be able to enjoy it; & the simple truth is, I detest it. Not mildly, but will all my heart. To me an opera is the very climax & cap-stone of the absurd, the fantastic the unjustifiable. I hate the very name of opera - partly because of the nights of suffering I have endured in its presence, & partly because I want to love it and can't.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Hate, Humorous

  6 Copy quote

• A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

  Robertson Davies

  World, Mere

  Robertson Davies (1999). “Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre”, Penguin Group USA

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• If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves. The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Br?nnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.

  W. H. Auden

  Real, Feelings, Quality

  60 Copy quote

• Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out.

  Gian Carlo Menotti

  Composer, Feels, Subjects

  7 Copy quote

• I was more of a light opera singer, not really much of a lounge singer.

  Melinda Clarke

  Light, Singers, Opera Singers

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Music, House

  1925 Letter to Isaac Goldberg.

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