Quotes on
35 quotes
Dance must be helped more. We must carry this art forward, because dance is an art.
Original (Italian): La danza deve essere aiutata di più. Dobbiamo portare avanti quest'arte, perché la danza è un'arte.
Carla Fracci'Domenica Con', Rai Storia, October 2020 (quoted by Finestre sull'Arte, May 2021)
On Verdi and modern stagings
These operas are in the hands many times of stage directors who with some exceptions are destroying the opera.
Riccardo MutiInterview with the Associated Press (Ronald Blum), June 2022
In this country, I've observed that despite all our talk of wanting to bring in younger audiences, opera is something that you come to… later.
Antonio PappanoInterview with Norman Lebrecht, The Spectator, 29 February 2020
In fact, what I'm doing is entering tradition, what I'm doing is finally respecting the tradition.
Peter SellarsBill Moyers' World of Ideas, 18 March 1990
To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.
Original (Italian): Copiare il vero può essere una buona cosa, ma inventare il vero è meglio, molto meglio.
Giuseppe VerdiLetter to Clara Maffei, 20 October 1876
As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.
Luciano PavarottiPavarotti: My World (with William Wright), 1995
The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
I could sing Parsifal many times every year, but I don't … It's too precious to just use it as a vehicle to make money.
Jonas KaufmannInterview with Mark Pullinger, Gramophone, April 2024
Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.
Thomas BeechamTelevision broadcast, 17 November 1953
Do you not realize that dance is the pure act of metamorphosis?
I shot all the films I wanted to, while I went back to opera whenever I felt vulnerable and in need of reassurance.
Franco ZeffirelliInterview, China Daily, 2013
Art is an investigation.
I should say that in an opera the poetry must be altogether the obedient daughter of the music.
Original (German): Bey einer opera muß schlechterdings die Poesie der Musick gehorsame Tochter seyn.
Wolfgang Amadeus MozartLetter to his father, Leopold Mozart, Vienna, 13 October 1781
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
It's the primal art. The most physical. The most personal of them all.
Gene KellyThat's Dancing! (film), 1985
Singing as an art is usually not considered with enough earnestness.
Enrico CarusoCaruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing (Caruso's section), Metropolitan Company, New York, 'Good Diction a Requisite', 1909
Long live the politico-satirical-parodistic opera!
Richard StraussLetter to Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 5 June 1916; A Working Friendship (Vienna House, 1961), p. 251
After five years of the Ring, I simply can't do Tristan.
Patrice ChéreauAs recalled by Daniel Barenboim, 'Patrice Chéreau – from Scandal to Legend' (danielbarenboim.com), 1981
Spoken by Gilbert
Music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret.
Oscar Wilde'The Critic as Artist', Intentions (1891), Part I
For me, opera is dreams, and when I dream I create my own planet.
Franco ZeffirelliAs quoted in his Los Angeles Times obituary, 16 June 2019
I have always believed that opera is a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts.
Franco ZeffirelliInternational Herald Tribune, 21 March 1990
Of course opera is a very old form of art. But I find it has an incredible power to open the doors to our hearts.
Jonas KaufmannInterview with Rosemarie Frühauf, The Epoch Times, 4 December 2011
Dancers are both athletes and artists.
We're hardworking people in this place, producing something that is at once entertaining and fulfilling and beautiful.
Antonio PappanoInterview with Mark Pullinger, Bachtrack, 4 June 2024