Opera Criticism Quotes

The difference between me and, say, the opera critic is that I'm charged with thinking about the world beyond opera. I could go see 'Die Fledermaus', for instance. I've never done any of this, by the way. I've never written about one opera since I've had this job.

I dislike those people that see an opera and say "Oh, they can't act it. They just sing. It's boring." Lean back and just listen to the voices.

If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.

Opera: I like it, except for all those howling sopranos and caterwauling tenors. (Why can't tenors sing like men?)

People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it.

The trouble with the opera is there's always to much singing.

Wagner used to read the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there.

Opera is given so little attention in the national press.

Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.

I guess I am running the risk of becoming the Hans Christian Andersen of opera.

One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend to hear it a second time.

I have attended operas, whenever I could not help it, for fourteen years now; I am sure I know of no agony comparable to the listening to an unfamiliar opera.

There isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.

Opera? Just what the world needs: more fat women screaming.

The opera is like a husband with a foreign title - expensive to support, hard to understand and therefore a supreme social challenge.

Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.

I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera.

How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.

In opera, there is always too much singing.

A libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen bya man who should never have attempted it.