Opera Production Quotes

I think the composer and production staff of an opera have a real responsibility to use visual elements of all kinds to make clear to the American audience, at any rate, exactly what is going on.

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.

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.

'Rigoletto' has long been one of my favorite operas, and it was on my short list way back when I first talked to Peter Gelb. I started thinking about what I could bring to this masterpiece, which has been seen all over the world for so many years.

A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

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.

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'd like to direct more operas.

When my opera Plump Jack was performed in 1989, my first piano teacher sent me something that I'd composed when I was four. I remember I played it, and it still sounded like me. I'm the same composer I was then.

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 became a set designer for opera.

If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.

Quite a few operas are still being commissioned around the world, although nothing apart from audience popularity can ensure more than a few performances.

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

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.

I had a schoolmaster who was a supernumerary at Glyndebourne Opera, and through, I got a job as a walk-on in Peter Hall's production of 'Don Giovanni' there in 1975 or 1976.

I don't know if I would write an opera, maybe because of the words. But yes, I would be really excited to do it. I would certainly write a ballet or... I've done a lot of stage before.

I'm involved with a baroque opera company here in Italy. I write some of their booklet material, comments on operas. I also write for some baroque opera festivals because this music is my real passion.

Music - opera particularly - is a process which is endurable or successful only if it is achieved by people who love to collaborate.

It's the economics, that's why opera is not dying but gets more and more difficult to put on.

I never liked opera growing up. I always liked chamber music or solo music even more than orchestral music.

I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money.

I had been warned by other directors that opera is hell. The singers don't want to do what you want.

The 'Daughter of the Regiment' that I did in Boston was vintage Sarah Caldwell, which is to say it was brilliant. Before my career was over, I'm sure I sang the role of Marie at least a hundred times, often in productions that cost a fortune, but none touched hers.

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