Robert Lepage Quotes

It was my contention that opera can not only pay for itself if it is well given, but it can also command a much wider audience if given like a play with lots of rehearsals and wonderful singers that fit the role.

Now the big question is if you are going to go to all the trouble of setting an opera and making all that music and so on, there's got to be some aspect that you can do in an opera that really makes it worth while.

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.

I'd like to direct more operas.

If I were a writer and not a singer in 10 years, I don't know how I'd feel about writing really personal songs and getting someone else to sing them.

Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

I saw a lot of operas from backstage and watched a lot of rehearsals - my parents were singers.

I was never really interested in an operatic post, but I took on the Bastille because it seemed a unique opportunity to build an opera ensemble from scratch, and to deal with all the disciplines that go into opera - the music, the staging and the singing - in an interrelated way.

I love singing, and I used to perform quite a lot, but now, as a director, you just tend to watch other people perform and tell them what to do.

I would do musicals in high school where there was dancing, and I would sing my verse, and then they would choreograph it so when I would take an eight-count to back up to the back of the stage while the other dancers covered me up because my body was totally... I was always in newborn-deer mode.

I feel like a lot of bands have done amazing covers, but whenever we start working on it, whenever we try it in rehearsal, it never feels right for me to do the song.

I sang 'Nessun Dorma' twice with Pavarotti, and he told me he'd heard 'Smoke' about five or six times, and every time was different. He was so jealous because if he deviated one jot from the traditional interpretation of the famous arias, he'd be crucified. We have the freedom.

Theatre is different. We can spend two weeks around a table talking about subtext. In opera, there is a score, and people already know their parts. And they move differently. I find all this liberating.

If you decide to work with the opera world, chances are there are going to be people who resist that.

When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.

I have so much respect for the big opera singers that I never dare to say I'm a singer.

There's trials and tribulations in a band.

Directing is quite a nuts-and-bolts thing. It's a mixture of creating an atmosphere in which actors can feel safe enough to be dangerous.

I was offered a part in the stage version of 'Calendar Girls,' but the part is so predictable. It just makes me angry when I read the script.

Choreographers tend to treat ballet dancers like kids they can manipulate.

When we went to see the first rough cuts of 'Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence,' I fell to the floor because my acting was so bad. I wrote music to compensate for my bad acting.

I just started studying opera - very, very much as hobby - and for some reason I've been gravitating toward French composers, like a lot of Debussy and Faure. I find it a really sinuous and spooky language to sing in.

Sometimes when I do a musical, they'll be a scene that comes up, and I'm like, 'Oh, I hate this scene,' but you get through it.

Singing is something that I have learnt. I have given exams for it.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.