Metropolitan Opera Quotes

Americans, they have an incredible operatic tradition: the Metropolitan Opera House is - if not the most prestigious - one of the most prestigious opera houses in the world for over 100 years.

The Metropolitan Opera, of course, is the gold standard in opera. The Met experience includes the huge stage, the vast audience, the elaborate sets. Anyone who saw 'Faust' there - I did - knows exactly what hell is like, complete with fire, smoke and terror.

You can make a debut in 25 operas. But to make a debut at the Metropolitan Opera is huge.

At 7, I was at the barre and dancing at folk festivals. Then I was a student with the ballet school of the Metropolitan Opera.

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.

Let's be clear: I love singing at the Met.

When you realize that the uncut 'Porgy and Bess' started me off, that I'd have the opportunity to do a ton of 'Stoppard,' 'Hairspray,' that I'm able to do 'Il Trittico' at the Met - how do I top that?

My father's an opera nut, and my stepmother used to work at the Metropolitan Opera, so I had a lot of opera immersion. I like the grandness and pretention of it.

I was playing in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as principal horn. I was there for some 15 years - one of the most exciting and great musical periods in my life.

That was more or less coincidental in the sense that my parents wanted me to come back to New York because that's the center of musical activity still to this day, more or less, and so I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera.