Lots of opera singers are just boring.
I quit my job in the bank when I was 19. I took a chance. I went to Milan to study opera and singing. My father really supported me economically.
I originally wanted to be an opera singer. I studied classical voice at the University of Washington but soon realised I didn't have the instrument or the discipline. The road for opera singers is more difficult than for actors.
Both my mother and my grandmother aspired to be opera singers. And they studied it.
When I'm about to train a new opera, I first listen to how Jussi Björling did it. His voice was unique and it's his path that I want to follow. I would more than anything else wish that people compared me with Jussi Björling. It's like so I'm striving to sing.
As a young singer, you have to get experience somehow, to try things out and grow as a singer. They way you do that is by going through the ranks and singing at companies like Opera Birmingham. It's a perfect place to foster a career.
Opera requires an enormous commitment. You must devote your whole life to producing that extraordinary sound.
I didn't know I was going to go into musical theater necessarily. It was never planned. I just kind of fell into it because I knew I wanted to act, and yet I had this opera training... I knew I had a voice.
I studied classical opera, so I was always singing in Italian and German and French.
