Opera Quotes - Page 22

• My favorite type of music to sing would be between R and B and opera.

  Stefano Langone

  Would Be, My Favorite, Type

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• I belong to the givers. I want to give a little happiness even if I haven’t had much for myself. Music has enriched my life and, hopefully - through me, a little - the public’s. If anyone left an opera house feeling more happy and at peace, I achieved my purpose.

  Maria Callas

  Giving, House, Feelings

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• I have stared long enough at the glowing flat rectangles of computer screens. Let us give more time for doing things in the real world...plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.

  Edward Tufte

  Dog, Real, Book

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• Opera is when a tenor and soprano want to make love, but are prevented from doing so by a baritone.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Making Love, Want, Sopranos

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• Hey yogurt, if you're so cultured, how come I never see you at the opera?

  Stephen Colbert

  Hey, Yogurt, Ifs

  "The Colbert Report", Season 5. Comedy, News, Talk-Show, 2009.

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• I was interested in opera and it seemed to me that the only possible theatre for contemporary opera would be television. So I started working towards a kind of television kind of opera.

  Robert Ashley

  Theatre, Would Be, Television

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• The most intelligent inspection of any number of fine paintings will not make the observer a painter, nor will listening to a number of operas make the hearer a musician, but good judges of music and painting may so be formed. Chess differs from these. The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Learning, Intelligent, Player

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• Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform.

  Giuseppe Verdi

  Mistake, Writing, Two

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• You could live without the opera singer, but not without the services of the baker. On this ground you might say that the baker performs a greater service; but no lover of music would agree.

  Bertrand Russell

  Music, Bakers, Singers

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, World, Timeless

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• Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one. At least the type of theatre that I'm interested in; that is, theatre that moves an audience. You have the opportunity to literally impact the lives of people if they work on material that has integrity. But today, most actors simply want to be famous. Well, being an actor was never supposed to be about fame and money. Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition.

  Sanford Meisner

  Life, Crush, Religious

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• The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.

  Giuseppe Verdi

  Hands, Tenors, Conductor

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• 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.

  Gordon Getty

  Teacher, Piano, Firsts

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• I had a year at 3 when I wanted to be a conductor in the opera.

  Nina Arianda

  Years, Wanted, Conductor

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• A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you've got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer.

  James Fenton

  Song, Voice, Giving

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• I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.

  Steve Martin

  Art, Ballet, Looks

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• Most visions of extraterrestrial life are actually steeped in human hubris. The fictional extraterrestrials of 'Star Trek' or a hundred other space operas are less alien than many of my neighbors. And funny, the ones running the place are mostly WASPish men.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Running, Stars, Men

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• Daytime soap operas, which I used to adore, have been declining in quality and importance for over a decade, and I gradually stopped monitoring them.

  Camille Paglia

  Quality, Soap, Used

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• When I wrote the opera, I made a deal with myself that for at least an hour a day I would work on it, even if it meant just sitting on my piano bench, staring into space and thinking about it. It's about keeping it regular, like your bowel movements - let's get real: it's your bodily artistic movements! It comes from the same place.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Real, Thinking, Piano

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• The work that launched Snohetta into the architectural big leagues was their Oslo Opera House, which will certainly rank among the firm's highlights whatever else they may do. Although this is by any measure a triumph of city planning, the building itself is not quite a masterpiece, though very fine indeed.

  Martin Filler

  Cities, League, House

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• excuse me' he added, taking the opera glasses out of her hands and looking over her bare shoulder at the row of boxes opposite, 'i'm afraid i'm becoming ridiculous

  Leo Tolstoy

  Hands, Opposites, Glasses

  LEO TOLSTOY (1961). “ANNA KARENINA”

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• Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like? Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a good-looking fellow, eh?...When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me.She loves me forever! I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!...Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant! -Erik in The Phantom of the Opera

  Gaston Leroux

  Eye, Voice, Forever

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• An aria in an opera - Handel's 'Ombra mai fu,' for example - gets along with an incredibly small number of words and ideas and a large amount of variation and repetition. That's the beauty of it. It's not taxing to the listener's intelligence because if you haven't heard it the first time round, it'll come around again.

  James Fenton

  Small Numbers, Ideas, Example

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• I started to work in television for three or four years, in 1954. There was one channel of television, black and white. But it could be entertaining and educational. During the evening they showed important plays, opera or Shakespeare's tragedies.

  Umberto Eco

  Educational, Black And White, Years

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• In my iPod, there are many operas, from A to Z. I have 'Aida' and 'Boheme' and 'Butterfly' and 'Cavalleria'. My passion is for opera, but when I'm in the car, I listen to everything.

  Andrea Bocelli

  Butterfly, Passion, Ipods

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