An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
In the modern operas that 'Miss Saigon' and 'Les Miz' are, nobody breaks out into song from conventional book dialogue. Everything is sung from beginning to end, including the recitative.
Well, opera began with an intent to resuscitate Greek drama, that is, modern opera as we know it.
I am under no illusion that I will ever be the greatest opera composer in the world, with Wagner and Verdi and Strauss before me. I think my work could fit very nicely into musicals, though.
Opera - above and beyond anything else - is about the music, and it should be about the music.
The idea is not to have one great singer surrounded by a bunch of nit wits. When the others are good, too, that's when you get something happening in opera.
The opera in Los Angeles is excellent.
My interest in women's voices started when I was in the boys' choir and we were singing in opera choruses. That was my first close-up experience with the female soprano voice. I was amazed at how it could be within the same scale but so different in quality.
I've always gravitated towards opera, and the Royal Opera House is quite possibly the greatest opera house on earth.
At its best, no art form is more thrilling than grand opera, yet none is at greater risk of following the dinosaurs down the cold road to extinction.
In opera, there is always too much singing.
