Quotes on
31 quotes
Comparing conductors with football managers
A good manager pushes his or her players to give their best, not just to be the star, but to contribute to the team. It's the same with orchestras.
Speranza ScappucciInterview with Mark Pullinger, Bachtrack, 17 March 2026
All there is to be said for work compared to dance is that the latter is so much easier.
Spoken by Lady Henry
I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.
Oscar WildeThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter 4
It is not always a matter of wild ovations and legendary performances. Sometimes you are just happy to get through an opera without trouble.
Luciano PavarottiPavarotti: My World (with William Wright), 1995
If you sing tight in the throat, and you sing onstage, and you have a big orchestra, it's finito. Your voice goes, 'Ciao.'
Mirella FreniInterview, The New York Times, 2005
On the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras
If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it, but then they ask why.
Herbert von KarajanBrian Moynahan, 'Funeral in Berlin', The Sunday Times, 30 January 1983; in Norman Lebrecht, The Book of Musical Anecdotes
I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it!'
Martha GrahamBlood Memory, 1991
Spoken by Algernon
I don't play accurately – any one can play accurately – but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
Oscar WildeThe Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act I
Keep your sense of humor. Opera loves to take itself incredibly seriously. I get it: we're singing about life and death, passion and jealousy and despair! All worthy endeavors, but if we take ourselves too seriously, it's a grueling existence!
Joyce DiDonatoInterview with Eden Gold, Authority Magazine (Medium), 30 June 2024
For the ballet to be in the least credible, it is essential to be entirely incredible.
Long live the politico-satirical-parodistic opera!
Richard StraussLetter to Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 5 June 1916; A Working Friendship (Vienna House, 1961), p. 251
Dancing is like bank robbery, it takes split second timing.
I attended the class for only two years, but I needed five years of practical conducting experience before I managed to unlearn what he had taught me.
Georg SoltiMemoirs (Knopf), 1997
My feet are dogs.
Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't talk and dance at the same time.
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.
Thomas BeechamHarold Atkins and Archie Newman, Beecham Stories, p. 27, 1978
I love finding the right balance, and I tried to find comedy based on truth, and not contrived situations.
Carla FracciPasso dopo passo (autobiography, with Enrico Rotelli), as translated on Gramilano, 22 April 2014, 2013
I'm a perfectionist, like every dancer, but I'm good at keeping irritations to myself.
Marianela NuñezInterview with Graham Spicer, Gramilano, 9 July 2020
Asked, when filling in her tax return, whether she had any dependants
Yes – Rudolf Bing.
Birgit NilssonAs reported in her Guardian obituary (Frank Granville Barker and Alan Blyth, January 2006)
Asked what it takes to sing Wagner's Isolde
Comfortable shoes.
Birgit NilssonWidely reported reply when asked the chief requirement for singing Isolde
Spoken by Algernon
You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
Oscar WildeThe Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act I
Toe dancing is a dandy attention getter, second only to screaming.
Spoken by Dorian Gray
I never talk during music – at least, during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.
Oscar WildeThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter 4
Soloists? I will fire the first man who dares to call himself this word!
Igor MoiseyevElle magazine interview, April 1996