Nina Arianda Quotes

He was making all kinds of sounds apparently with his mouth, and shaking his head and I thought, gosh, is he trying to stop the orchestra? Is it all wrong? It was just unbelievable.

My whole life, I've been watching conductors. I was 7 the first time I played with a conductor. Seeing the ones that do it well, it's an amazing thing.

I've always gravitated towards opera, and the Royal Opera House is quite possibly the greatest opera house on earth.

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.

I'm a little less hungry as an actor than I used to be. When you're a director, you're the conductor of the orchestra, and when you're an actor, you're playing the violin. There's a thrill to each of them, but as the conductor, you get the fuller sound.

In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems.

I love to conduct opera.

The opera in Los Angeles is excellent.

I actually was a musician in college, a composer and singer, and really intended to be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein when I got out.

If anything, when I was young, I wanted to be an orchestra.

To play opera, to play Wagner, it's a great joy.

I am under no illusion that I will ever be the greatest opera composer in the world, with Wagner and Verdi and Strauss before me. I think my work could fit very nicely into musicals, though.

I feel at home in an orchestral score.

I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms.

Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.

Over the years, I've loved being on stage with an orchestra, waving my hands around.

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

To be a famously successful opera singer. I wanted that since I was eight.

I like classical music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and I adore Bach above all.

I love doing concert music.

It's been very exciting for me to start directing and conducting, exploring the symphonic repertoire, which I've always loved.

My desire was never to put out albums; it was to do musical theatre!

I recently did a piece for the Boston Pops and John Williams, and I hope that it's as well a composed piece as I've ever done for any other medium or occasion.

The music of the most popular operas is so highly esteemed, it can stand endless revivals.

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.