1.
Some may say that I couldn't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing.
Florence Foster Jenkins
'Though my vocal cords may not have been perfect, no one can deny that I gave it my all.'
2.
Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.
Don Rickles
Italians are remarkable individuals, truly. They can rough you up in a backstreet while crooning an aria.
3.
I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.
Lesley Garrett
4.
I 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 Bartoli
5.
H is for Hardware store: I'd rather go to the hardware store than the opera. And I like the opera.
Marlene Dietrich
6.
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
7.
Daytime soap operas, which I used to adore, have been declining in quality and importance for over a decade, and I gradually stopped monitoring them.
Camille Paglia
8.
One gets, sensitive about losing mornings after getting a little used to them with living in a country. Each one of these endlessly varied daybreaks is an opera but once performed.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
9.
I ride horseback - arthritic knees permitting - or listen to opera. Sometimes I cook. I used to do needlework, but it's hard on my hands now, so I only do it occasionally, but I like it. And, of course, I read.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
10.
The first rule in opera is the first rule in life: see to everything yourself
Nellie Melba
12.
We consider Monteverdi the first composer of opera. There was someone before, but everything started with Monteverdi.
Cecilia Bartoli
13.
The music of this opera (Madame Butterfly) was dictated to me by God. I was merely instrumental in getting it on paper and communicating it to the public.
Giacomo Puccini
14.
It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
Carlisle Floyd
15.
Strictly cop and go's until we laid in the Galapagos
Eating tacos, higher than an opera note
Action Bronson
16.
Hey yogurt, if you're so cultured, how come I never see you at the opera?
Stephen Colbert
17.
The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.
Giuseppe Verdi
18.
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
19.
For me, you say the words 'concept record,' and the first thing I think of is theater or the opera or something.
Chester Bennington
20.
My dream is to be played everywhere, not only at the Opera.
Erik Satie
21.
I tell you, it is easier to build a grand opera or a city center than to build a personal house.
Alvar Aalto
22.
I 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 Owens
23.
As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.
Luciano Pavarotti
24.
Opera is when a tenor and soprano want to make love, but are prevented from doing so by a baritone.
George Bernard Shaw
25.
The earth was once molten rock and now sings operas.
Brian Swimme
26.
(Referring to the piano's natural shape) Isn't it a shame when those big fat opera singers lean against the pianos and bend them?
Victor Borge
27.
I want to reach as many people as possible with the message of music, of wonderful opera.
Luciano Pavarotti
28.
There's an opera out on the turnpike, there's a ballet being fought out in the alley.
Bruce Springsteen
29.
If an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality.
Thomas Beecham
30.
The banging and slamming and booming and crashing were something beyond belief. [On Lohengrin]
Mark Twain
31.
Wagner used to read the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
32.
It's like telling Mozart that there are too many notes in an opera. Which one do you want us to take out?
Gordon Bethune
33.
It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of course, if they had gotten the original company to have done it, it would have been very good
Cab Calloway
34.
Mozart has written opera, symphony, sacred and chamber music - not to mention his piano and violin concerti.
Neville Marriner
35.
Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.
Robert Burns
36.
I've never had any feeling of disconnection between the classical theater, or the contemporary theater, or musical theater, or the thing that we call opera.
Trevor Nunn
37.
Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.
Tony Curtis
38.
The Germans are a cruel race. Their operas last for six hours and they have no word for fluffy.
Ben Elton
39.
For the shallow delights of matrimony and opera I have no courage.
Johannes Brahms
40.
If you're a young artist, wondering what to call yourself, consider 'multimedia artist.' It's so vague. Then, no one can say, 'Hey, how come you're a jazz person, and you're making a pop opera?
Laurie Anderson
41.
Why, in the Peking Opera, are women's roles played by men?...Because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act.
David Henry Hwang
42.
The audience is requested not to refrain from talking during the overture. Otherwise they will know all the tunes before the opera begins.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
43.
Music conveys moods and images. Even in opera, where plots deal with the structure of destiny, it's music, not words, that provides power.
Marcel Marceau
45.
You couldn't tell if she was dressed for an opera or an operation.
Irvin S. Cobb
46.
Excepting a religious ceremonial, there is no occasion where greater dignity of manner is required of ladies and gentlemen both, than in occupying a box at the opera. For a gentleman especially no other etiquette is so exacting.
Emily Post
47.
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.
Rufus Wainwright
48.
Opera is one of the most important art forms. It should be listened to and appreciated by everyone.
Luciano Pavarotti
49.
My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas in nature.
Henry David Thoreau
50.
I did radio, I did television, I did opera, I did films in which I had very, very little to say. But I had a lot of experience in front of the camera, and that's what really counts.
Christopher Lee