Top 1200 Opera Singers Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don't manage that - but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.

I was an acting opera singer, and that's one of the reasons I left opera.

The only thing worse than opera is someone who hums along with opera.

I wouldnt mind seeing opera die. Ever since I was a boy, I regarded opera as a ponderous anachronism, almost the equivalent of smoking.

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.

All you need in a successful boyband is two great singers and three okay singers and you get can away with it.

The best songs are stories, and the best singers storytellers. Great singers can make you care about what they're feeling. You have a sense of knowing them.

Opera Australia has a mix - it produces new work, it produces from the classical repertoire and, particularly in more recent years, it's done those blockbuster musicals which are very lucrative for it and reach an audience that classic opera or a new opera perhaps wouldn't reach, like South Pacific for example.

Singing doesn't have to mean that you sound like Stevie Wonder. I love to sing. I'm not the greatest singer in the world. But, a lot of my favorite singers aren't the greatest singers in the world.

I never breathe through the nose, not when I'm singing. In the opera, you don't have so much time. That's fine at the beginning of an opera or after somebody else has been doing an aria, and you want to get a good fresh start.

I tend to sing opera and showtunes in the shower. I don't know why, but when I get in the shower I turn into this big fat opera lady.

I've always said that Adele has turned so many people on to British singers - whether female singers or just like music from this country in general.

I was 6, and I was in the opera 'Carmen.' My dad sang opera and got me into the children's chorus. I was super fat at the time and didn't make eye contact with anyone. I knew I loved acting ever since.

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.

Well first of all, I'm a singer. I sing since I talk. So the great ballad singers, the people that sang with so much feeling, jazz, blues, all those singers, they were songs that I listened to, records that my mom played for me, and then later I bought.

To women, drummers seem like these adorable, sexy Neanderthals, and lead singers seem mysterious and dangerous. So while the lead singers all want to be David Bowie, floating into parties and being the center of attention, it's the drummers who are in the corner doing keg stands and breaking tables. Usually it's the drummers who get the fun-loving ladies and the singers who get the nutcases.

In my teens, I saw a terrible production of 'Die Walkuere.' To a person of 15, it was just awful, and it put me off for many years. Eventually I became an opera-goer, if not an opera buff.

Opera is full of trappings that make us go away from being human. You can't let them do that. You can't walk like you're in an opera! You have to make it real. You have to just be there.

In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket.

Take opera for example - to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.

The number of opera houses around the world and the high attendance rates show that opera an art form that is more popular than ever.

I grew up listening to Beethoven and old jazz singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Anita O'Day. But those were, like, the only women I listened to - I hated women pop singers.

Denzal Sinclaire embodies the tradition of the great singers I love like Nat Cole, yet definitely has his own voice. He is one of my favourite singers.

Opera was an enormous part of my childhood. My parents were both opera buffs, and they met in the box seat of an opera performance. And I also was a boy soprano, so before puberty hit, I was onstage playing a wide variety of orphans and urchins in all sorts of operas, and the sheer melodrama of their stories was just always appealing to me.

A lot of the new people they choose on shows like 'American Idol' and things like that - I don't ever hear lead singers. They always seem to choose to pick people that are great singers, fabulous singers, but they've never got the voice that makes a great lead singer.

Eventually, the more I listened and became obsessed with singers, I feel like the more I realized that I had my own little thing that I could do. So this is why I just became obsessed with looking for new singers, unknown singers, people that maybe have been forgotten, and really checking them out and analyzing what they do.

I remember when I got into movies, the only way singers could be heard was to through playback singing in movies. Then gradually came the music companies promoting independent pop singers.

Singers are definitely getting their due in Bollywood. I feel that music composers, on the other hand, tend to lose out on the popularity, fame, and success that singers usually enjoy.

I've never been to the opera; I've only seen opera on DVD.

People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.

To women, drummers seem like these adorable, sexy Neanderthals, but lead singers seem mysterious and dangerous. So while the lead singers all want to be David Bowie, floating into parties and being the center of attention, it's the drummers who are in the corner doing keg stands and breaking tables. Usually it's the drummers who get the fun-loving ladies and the singers who get the nutcases.

I was nearing the end of childhood when I started to pay real attention to jazz singers. Women excelled as jazz singers; they surpassed most of the men. Black women excelled as jazz singers; they surpassed most of the whites.

True expression is hard when performing opera. The problem is that opera relies on the dramatic context of the piece. It can be interpreted and represented, but there are guidelines; there is a vocabulary within the pieces that you must know objectively and reflect.

But Opera Man, I go, 'Oh, crap! Why didn't I think of that?' Because I could sing fake opera pretty good.

I just essentially stayed at home for three years and just learned to play as many instruments as I could and listened to as many singers as I could. Like, when I got to about 19/20, I started listening to singers. I normally just listened to bands. Now I listen to a lot of old singers, not a lot of new stuff.

That's opera! I just love it. It just thrills me! And it's very different than theatre, and sometimes it can be frustrating because when you come in the first day of rehearsals obviously you're an opera fan, right?

I think the best singers in the world, historically, are American. Britain's got its fair share, as well, but some of the greatest singers, ever, whether you're talking about Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey or Aretha Franklin, are from the legacy here.

Misery loves company. This is a Hollywood soap opera, and I'm not going to be a star in another Bryant soap opera.

I didn't really like opera. I liked cheerleading and boys and, later, smoking. So my opera career was cut short when I was 15. My dad got sick, and we couldn't afford the lessons, so I stopped and became a cheerleader and wrecked my voice.

When you work on a soap opera, that's three years of you working every day. There was no time to do anything other than the soap opera - you're locked in.

Games get a bad press compared with, say, opera - even though they're obviously better, because no opera has ever compelled an audience member to collect a giant mushroom and jump across some clouds.

We call out-of-tune singers as 'Aurangazeb singers.' I wouldn't say I'm as bad as an 'Aurangazeb singer,' but I'm definitely no singer.

The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly every modern opera makes great dramatic and physical demands.

As it turns out, three of my four kids are professional singers. And they're really interesting, good singers.

I know singers; I've worked with some of the greatest singers in the world.

You have singers that are trained, and then you have natural singers: people that, in my opinion, were just born to sing. And hopefully, I am one of them.

I think that opera in Europe is 30 years ahead of America. There is a broader range of material presented to the public. They value contemporary opera.

When I am on the opera stage, I am playing someone else. In recitals, I even have the chance to talk to the audience, which is something you don't get to do in opera.

As a piano player, if 10 is concert level, I'd put myself at a 5 or a 6, but in a completely different genre than classical or opera. In terms of classical and opera, playing accompaniment, I'd say I was a 3.

Opera needs a major makeover; the large opera houses are too in thrall to their conservative patrons.

The opera always loses money. That's as it should be. Opera has no business making money.

The taxpayers cannot be relied upon to support performing arts such as opera. As a taxpayer, I am forced to admit that I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera.

I really like female singers; I've got zero interest in working with male singers. Any male voice I need to do, I can do.

But Opera Man, I go, "Oh, crap! Why didn't I think of that?" Because I could sing fake opera pretty good.

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

I've never associated myself with other singers, certainly not female singers.

Well, opera began with an intent to resuscitate Greek drama, that is, modern opera as we know it.

I was attracted to opera when I was 15 or 16. A very rich man in England bankrupted himself to put on a lot of opera during the war, but he converted a lot of people, myself included, in the process.

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

I like the idea of people coming to opera for the first time and finding it an enjoyable experience. I don't like the fact that opera is seen as elitist and all black ties and that stuff.