ANNA NETREBKO

When I am on stage, I give everything. Maybe because of that, I won't last long, but I don't care.

I have no desire to become a crossover artiste, singing with microphones. I believe in opera; that it is something that young people would love if they had a chance to hear it.

You will not see me dressed in plain, modest outfits.

Opera is an exclusive art form, so it cannot be that popular. I just do what I love to do.

When I just started my career, of course, I always try to look very good, and I changes the dress all the time on the performance. And people came to me and said, 'Oh, beautiful dress. Your dress is so beautiful, and you look so beautiful.' That's it. And I was so upset nobody saying anything about my singing.

After the baby, I got bigger, and I like it. I like me better now than when I was young and skinny. I don't understand this extreme fashion for being anorexic-skinny. We forgot about women with curves - real women. We're not embracing that anymore.

I'm just a normal person. It's not like I come home and think about opera. My thoughts are about completely other things. Shoes! Dresses! Expensive ones: with a pretty silhouette, beautiful fabrics.

The jewellery I wear on stage in the opera house is not real, but the bling-bling I wear in concerts? Those are real!

I prefer it when the conductor follows me. It is more difficult to work with a conductor who does not listen - even if I understand that sometimes it makes sense when one person is ruling everything. But for bel canto, I have to have a conductor who listens and supports me.

I know what I'm missing. I know what I have to work on. Coloratura. And I sing sharp sometimes. It happens when I'm nervous.

In Russia, I pretend to be a lot of princesses and wait for prince. That was my dream.

I know what I want, and I know what needs to be done to make my performance better. So I do these little askings, about the lights and costumes. It's not the diva speaking. It's the artist who knows how it has to be done.

When you're singing before 15,000 people at a summer concert outside, you need to look beautiful, because that's what people want.

Life is not just about singing.

I have to be more modest now that I'm a mama, but I loved those days when I could really wear what I wanted to. I do love crazy shoes and clothes. But I mean, come on, I'm 38, so even if I like a dress of Betsey Johnson, I have to say, 'Stop it. Go for Chanel!'

The role I really want to sing is Elisabetta from 'Don Carlo.'

For me, St. Petersburg is the city that I can never escape because it has this special energy, even a dark energy. It keeps pulling me back.

I do not have voice for Russian music; I cannot be cute little peasant like in operas of Glinka or Rimsky-Korsakov. I am now never in Russia; I am Austrian citizen. But definitely I am Latin!

You should not starve yourself with stupid diets, which I don't believe in anyway.

I prefer department stores. In boutiques, they come up and ask you if you need help. I can't get lost in the experience.

As a soprano who sings 'Lucia di Lammermoor,' I have the high notes and the trills. No problems there. But going into the low registers is lots of work.

There are two types of conductors. One is the good conductor who can do passionate music but also listen to the singers and do the orchestra. And then there are great conductors, who have their own opinion on the music, who are ruling everything - and not listening much to the singers, but the orchestra play amazingly.

Lots of opera singers are just boring.

Nobody ever looked at me in Krasnodar. I'm not in the taste of the men there at all.

When I started, my teachers told me that I had to sing 'Mozart, Mozart, Mozart.' I said, 'No, I want to sing all the other stuff.' If you do not push yourself, you will stay the same. Maybe some singers are happy with that, but I have to move, I have to do something new always.