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Opera Quotes

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.'
Authors on Opera Quotes: Rufus Wainwright Andrea Bocelli Luciano Pavarotti Bruce Beresford Carlisle Floyd Gaston Leroux Renee Fleming Lesley Garrett Harrison Birtwistle Sarah Caldwell Maurice Sendak Garth Greenwell Tod Machover Dario Argento Stewart Copeland Nina Arianda Katherine Jenkins Groucho Marx Christoph Waltz Cecilia Bartoli Zola Jesus Ralph Vaughan Williams Jacob Hashimoto Rudolf Bing Josh Lanyon Ben Elton Ashley Benson Norman Ralph Augustine Elie Wiesel Bertrand Russell Robin Gibb Nik Wallenda Maureen O'Hara
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

11.
Opera is for a lifetime, not just a minute.
Kiri Te Kanawa

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

44.
Opera is a beautiful and important diversion for me.
Luciano Pavarotti

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