Anna Netrebko Quotes

It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.

I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach. There are very few great conducting teachers, and most great conductors don't teach. Look at Valery Gergiev - what he does is not teachable. A lot of it is on-the-job training, what works and what doesn't work.

I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading.

All the conductor has to do is stand back and try not to get in the way. Mozart is doing all the work.

Conductors are performers.

I wouldn't go so far as to make 'You Don't Own Me' a tango or 'It's My Party' a hip-hop thing. Believe me, those things have been suggested to me. But I thought if I could stay true to the song, the arrangements would work. I'm really enjoying singing them.

Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra - not choreography to the audience.

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor.

Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.

For me, the conductor is a person who interprets along with me, and we interpret things together.

Conducting is way over my head.

A lot of people think the orchestra is playing and the conductor doesn't do very much, but the conductor's the person that gives shape to the music, gets the phrasing, and if he has really fine musicians in solo spots, the question is does he try to help them phrase, or does he let them go?

Conducting is about communication. You don't play any notes, but you communicate with the musicians.

I never feel that I have to adopt a character. It's more the way I choose to present the music and that's always based on what is right for the song.

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.

Before Liszt, a conductor was someone who just facilitated the performance, who would keep people together or beat the time, indicate the entries. After Liszt, that was no longer the case; a conductor was someone who shaped the music in an intense musical way, who played the orchestra as an instrument.

Musicians are also interpretive artists and we are just as creative as painters and writers. We interpret in a way that expresses ourselves.

I have never followed anyone's style of singing.

What I do is creative. It doesn't seem like that when I'm playing a piece that was written in the past, but the score is just the outline and everything in it is relative. The key is to make this piece written by someone else belong to you and then connect to the audience.

I don't think I could ever be in a band if we just had to go out there and play the record note for note. I'd give up. I'd become a banker.

The myriad of ways that a song can be interpreted is astounding to me, and it's part of the allure of writing.

I hate when I get pinned down to a genre. I have a sound, a lane I want to go down, but I never want to be stuck in my song choices.

Bernstein was everywhere - Vienna, London - and everyone admired him. Of course he loved Boston, and he did so many great things at Tanglewood. He was the best example of what a conductor should be.

I have no choice in what direction my music goes, honestly, as all I get is what I'm given. I start writing the songs, and they start presenting themselves the way they want to be heard.