Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
And finally I begin to have such a success in my examinations that I found myself in a career you see.
Passion, that thing of beauty, that flowering without roots, has to be born, live and die without reason.
The moment you say, 'Please, give me a reason for this', then you are being impossible and temperamental.
It seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not, more important now was for me to love them
When a singer truly feels and experiences what the music is all about, the words will automatically ring true.
Maybe because Im a nice and sweet person in life, I like the darker roles. The really dark one is Lady Macbeth.
Music is part of life. It is not the real life. I belong to that first: family, children. The important things.
Maybe because I'm a nice and sweet person in life, I like the darker roles. The really dark one is Lady Macbeth.
I've always tried to be cheerful, because I think people who whine are boring, and I never could tolerate bores.
The sound of a mother's voice expresses a feeling of intimacy, which has a truly magical effect on the listener.
If I cannot sing, I have the impression that I no longer exist. I mean it. I mean that I am not physically there.
You won’t be famous until people start saying the worst things they can about you. Don’t worry! It’s a good sign!
Opera is an extremely disciplined art form, and every excess a singer indulges in has a direct effect on the voice.
If I'd been a housemaid I'd have been the best in Australia - I couldn't help it. It's got to be perfection for me.
The jewellery I wear on stage in the opera house is not real, but the bling-bling I wear in concerts? Those are real!
The press frequently sneers at the hype devoted to a superstar, but the press itself is responsible for all the hype.
A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.
All the goodness, beauty, and perfection of a human being belong to the one who knows how to recognize these qualities.
I prefer department stores. In boutiques, they come up and ask you if you need help. I can't get lost in the experience.
The Lourie Center eases the burden of children and their families through early intervention and diagnoses and treatment.
So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.
I know what I'm missing. I know what I have to work on. Coloratura. And I sing sharp sometimes. It happens when I'm nervous.
When you're singing before 15,000 people at a summer concert outside, you need to look beautiful, because that's what people want.
I have always made impresarios a lot of money across my career and have never, so far as I am aware, given any of them heart attacks.
Russians always need a little sh*t in our lives. If everything is good and we seem completely happy, then we become suspicious of that.
I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter.
As soon as I arrive at the house, Laurie starts running, hits my chest, knocks me down, and licks my face. It's become a family ritual.
I got out while they were still fighting to buy tickets to hear me. I believe in getting out when you're on top, and that's what I did.
Just sing it. Don't prove you can sing it. I know you can, you know you can. So just do it, because if you try to prove it, you'll lose.
For me, St. Petersburg is the city that I can never escape because it has this special energy, even a dark energy. It keeps pulling me back.
I think you have to take everything that looks like a blow and turn it into a triumph. This is where my energy comes from: I just won't be licked.
As a soprano who sings 'Lucia di Lammermoor,' I have the high notes and the trills. No problems there. But going into the low registers is lots of work.
When I am not on the stage, it is always very difficult for the public to find me! I am a private person who does not always want to be in the spotlight!
I have many that wants to, let's say, marry me. But I always tell my mother that the day I have to ask myself, 'I love this man?' means I don't love him.
I have an intuition, and usually my intuition is right. I have a feeling for whether a role will be good or bad for me, and I almost never make a mistake.
I love Massenet - 'Manon' had been a wonderful role for me - and the music he wrote for 'Thais' is quite enjoyable and not terribly demanding in a vocal sense.
Applause, it's very nice, of course. But when you're giving, and creating, and then there is the silence of everyone sitting there, listening, waiting, that is great.
You can't imitate; all our faces are constructed differently... and the vocal cords; otherwise, we'd all sound alike. I don't think anybody should ever teach by imitating.
If you wish to understand me at all (and to write an autobiography is only to open a window into one's heart) you must understand first and foremost, that I am an Australian.
I have no desire to become a crossover artiste, singing with microphones. I believe in opera; that it is something that young people would love if they had a chance to hear it.
When I was general director of City Opera, we were pioneers in the practice of projecting supertitles so that American audiences finally could know what all the singing was about.
My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.
I realised in 1985, after sitting for months and being very down, that I have to move. I have to be busy. Because, otherwise, it is like being in a waiting room. And waiting for what?
My parents never told me about Papa's lung cancer or the desperate nature of the operations he was about to undergo, which were a last-ditch effort to contain the spread of his cancer.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
I do not have voice for Russian music; I cannot be cute little peasant like in operas of Glinka or Rimsky-Korsakov. I am now never in Russia; I am Austrian citizen. But definitely I am Latin!
Im just a normal person. Its not like I come home and think about opera. My thoughts are about completely other things. Shoes! Dresses! Expensive ones: with a pretty silhouette, beautiful fabrics.
I'm just a normal person. It's not like I come home and think about opera. My thoughts are about completely other things. Shoes! Dresses! Expensive ones: with a pretty silhouette, beautiful fabrics.
I don't cancel because of temperament. I have had seven major surgeries in my life. I have had tumors. I have had two children with Caesareans; you don't just get up and sing the day after one of those.
If you ask me about vocal technique, I don't know anything. I could never be a teacher. I just know what my teacher told me: 'Always sing with a full voice. When they tell you, less sound, more piano - no.'