Opera Quotes - Page 28

• Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Real, Needs, Today

  "Rufus Wainwright on Passion, Opera and Taking Care of the Earth". Interview with Kristi York Wooten, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 1, 2014.

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

  Jon Lovitz

  Men, Thinking, Fake

  Interview with Sean O'Neal, www.avclub.com. December 29, 2010.

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• What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.

  Ian Mcewan

  Running, Two, Savages

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Everyone has their own taste: some like theatre, some don't, some like opera, some don't, some like pantomimes, and some don't.

  Clive Rowe

  Theatre, Taste, Pantomime

  Interview with Ryan Ormonde, www.londoncalling.com. November 21, 2015.

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• Strictly cop and go's until we laid in the Galapagos
  Eating tacos, higher than an opera note

  Action Bronson

  Hip Hop, Tacos, Cop

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• New Orleans had a great tradition of celebration. Opera, military marching bands, folk music, the blues, different types of church music, ragtime, echoes of traditional African drumming, and all of the dance styles that went with this music could be heard and seen throughout the city. When all of these kinds of music blended into one, jazz was born.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Military, Echoes, New Orleans

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• The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Singing, May

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.545, Vintage

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• I want to be known by people who are knowledgeable about opera, who appreciate bel canto singing, people who have more sensitivity.

  Alfredo Kraus

  People, Appreciate, Singing

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• What's all this about yanking poor Magnus and Alec back from their vacation?" Isabelle demanded. "They have opera tickets!

  Cassandra Clare

  Vacation, Tickets, Poor

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (4 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels”, p.1479, Simon and Schuster

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• We recognize the touch of the Opera ghost.

  Gaston Leroux

  Ghost

  Gaston Leroux (2016). “GOTHIC CRIME MYSTERIES – Premium Collection: The Phantom of the Opera, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, The Secret of the Night, The Man with the Black Feather & Balaoo: Thriller Classics”, p.941, e-artnow

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• Bel canto is to opera what pole-vaulting is to ballet.

  Ned Rorem

  Ballet, Musical

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• I went out to testify in front of the Ways and Means Committee out in Congress on open free trade to China. Now, this would affect literally every Minnesotan in some way or another, if not all Americans in some way or another....The local media sent no one out to cover my testimony....Well, then a couple weeks later, I go out to do The Young and the Restless, the TV soap opera, and everybody sends crews. We had to move them into a room in three different sections or three shifts of them because there was so much media covering that.

  Jesse Ventura

  Couple, Moving, Mean

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• I watch soap operas. I bake brownies. Normalcy is coursing through my veins.

  Parker Posey

  Watches, Veins, Normalcy

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• And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement. To spend a Saturday afternoon mopping your kitchen floor while listening to opera on the radio, and to go that night to an Indian restaurant with a friend and be home by nine o'clock - these are enough. They are gifts.

  Curtis Sittenfeld

  Home, Night, Appreciate

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• I’m turning into an old woman. Might as well start knitting and bitching about soap operas, gas prices, and rude drivers.” – Sundown

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Knitting, Rude, Might

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• You were born to rock, you'll never be an opera star.

  Neil Young

  Song, Stars, Rocks

  Song: Opera Star, Album: Re-ac-tor

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• If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.

  Pierre Beaumarchais

  Funny, Humorous, Belief

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• When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera... and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet.

  John Ruskin

  Sweet, Destiny, Wind

  John Ruskin, Charles Eliot Norton, John Lewis Bradley, Ian Ousby (1987). “The Correspondence of John Ruskin and Charles Eliot Norton”, p.79, Cambridge University Press

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• For me the whole world is like a gigantic theater in which I am the only spectator without opera glasses. The orchestra plays the prelude to the third act, the stage is far away as in a dream, my heart swells with delight—and you want to blind me with a pair of half-ruble spectacles?

  Isaac Babel

  Dream, Heart, Play

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• We all know that men in moderate circumstances can have just as comfortable houses as the richest, just as comfortable clothing, just as good food. They can see just as fine paintings, just as marvelous statues, and they can hear just as good music. They can attend the same theaters and the same operas. They can enjoy the same sunshine, and above all, can love and be loved just as well as kings and millionaires.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Money, Kings, Sunshine

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1902). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Miscellany”

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• Writing an opera and premiering in England, you could say I was going right into the eye of the storm and I came out successfully. A little tattered and bruised, but so what, I made it.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Writing, Eye, Storm

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• The Hitch Hiker's Guide has not been an opera. It has however been a tapestry, if you count a woven bath towel as a tapestry.

  Douglas Adams

  Woven, Towels, Baths

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• To me, the appeal of opera lies in the fact that a myriad of singers and instruments, each possessed of different qualities of voice and sound, against the backdrop of a grand stage and beautiful costumes, come together in one complete and impressive drama.

  Junichiro Koizumi

  Beautiful, Drama, Lying

  Junichiro Koizumi (2003). “Japan and ASEAN in East Asia: A Sincere and Open Partnership”, p.13, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

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• It's like telling Mozart that there are too many notes in an opera. Which one do you want us to take out?

  Gordon Bethune

  Want, Aviation, Notes

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• Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It's a general clean-out.

  Julian Fellowes

  Christmas, Character, Car

  "More Season 3 Conversation With ‘Downton Abbey’ Creator Julian Fellowes". Interview With Dave Itzkoff, artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com. February 19, 2013.

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