Montserrat Caballe Quotes

When I perform, I like to immerse myself in the music, and I just try to get off on the diversity of music.

Performing is an experience, for me, that is as humbling as it is energizing.

I'm the kind of performer who gets lost on stage. I can tap into this soulful haze.

Being a dancer I've got the idea that through discipline and hard work, you can develop the ability to be in a different dimension within seconds. You can be vomiting, you can detest who you are, detest the world, detest every single thing, and the next moment you are in the light and you glow. You forget everything, and you are just flying. When you're onstage, you are someone else. Beyoncé is very conscious of this. She said to me, "I'm another person when I'm onstage." And I said, "Oh yes, you are! You are an animal when you are onstage. You are a stage animal."

My boyfriend's a musician, and I think when he's on stage is the only time he's not worrying. And so that's the reason he keeps doing it is because it gives him that sort of experience of weightlessness that I only get out of being sort of, deep into writing something or really lost in a moment on set, like it's available to me in these select moments through my work.

You kind of notice what's going on in your body, and you can kind of feel a certain tightening, or fear, which is something that, as an artist, I've kind of befriended. I can pretty much count on it for anything that I engage in - that thing like, "Am I going to be able to pull this off?" Well, what am I gonna do with this feeling? The more nervous you get, the more worried you get about it. So you pay attention to what you might need.

When I walk on stage, it's the 'healing floor.' No matter how bad I'm hurting, I get out there and do it.

I am always interested in making myself as uncomfortable as I can. Sometimes I ask myself, 'Can I stand onstage and sing this song and sell it?' Sometimes I can't. In a room, you get to pretend a little bit and step outside of yourself.

I really - I just wanna sing. And I wanna show people that I can sing.

I was awful my first time. I was so shy eating in front of people. It was so awkward. But my next contest, I brought a bunch of my family out, and I won that one. I remember I almost barfed because my mom, at the end of the contest, she yelled out, 'Do it for Mama!' Everybody laughed. It was one of the closest I've ever been to barfing.

When I'm on stage, I know exactly where I am. It's not an ego thing or anything like that, but I am more in my body and aware of myself and aware of what I'm doing, and I feel more from that, from sharing the music.

I was super shy as a kid, and theater was a way that everything made sense to me.

The first tour an artist does is a strange one... because you can never tell how the audience is going to react.

The whole thing with playing on a stage with mics and all that has always been kind of uncomfortable to me.

I would say runway is easier because your job is to look good or play a character that is just going somewhere. It's rather physical, whereas acting is terrifying because you're dealing with your subconscious, and those can be murky waters. But I definitely can say that I enjoy acting more as an artist.

I can't speak for anybody else but myself 'cause I usually get in trouble when I speak for other people, so I've learned my lesson not to do that, but for me, I've been known to pace for quite a while when I walk onstage, and that's just because I'm becoming one with my shell.

The first time I ever sang in front of a crowd of people was, like, 10,000 people in Japan at a skating exhibition.

The first time I stepped on stage and I started singing, I knew that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.

I think that those moments before a performer plays are the moments when the potential for something to be created may - or may not - arrive.

That's the thing: when I'm on stage, I don't care; there could be ten people there, there could be ten million people there. But if I'm offstage, I'm, like, counting the people. I know exactly where everyone's standing, how far they are from me.

Self-awareness is a character trait that's horrible to have if you're a performer. I think that a lot of these performers that we see get up on stage and play music, there's a sense of them truly not caring how they're coming across. They are just themselves. I look up to a lot of people who are like that.

I think I have a certain awkwardness, and I don't know how that works on screen.

Some nights I'm funny with the between-song commentary, some nights I'm not. I have no control over this. I pace the stage a lot and struggle with the mic stand in a ridiculous way.

So initially getting up on stage I was really nervous, I was like, 'wow, I'm going to be standing there and all these people are going to be looking at me?' But funnily enough it wasn't too traumatic. It felt quite natural because I felt I looked good and I knew how to do the poses.

I've been singing since I was a little kid, but 'Sierra' was my first time singing on camera, which was definitely intimidating at first.