In the modern operas that 'Miss Saigon' and 'Les Miz' are, nobody breaks out into song from conventional book dialogue. Everything is sung from beginning to end, including the recitative.
Originally I had a block about appearing in a musical. I went to a voice teacher for a while, but that did no good. My range is about one and a half notes. I ended up talking the musical numbers, which was revolutionary at the time. The lyrics are extremely intricate. They move along like a precisely acted scene. If you miss a word - heaven help you - the orchestra rattles past like an express train, and you've got to run like the devil to catch up.
Any opera is interesting if the characters are worth seeing.
To not sing with an orchestra, to not be able to communicate through my voice, which I've done all my life, and not to be able to phrase lyrics and give people that kind of joy, I think I would be totally devastated.
Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.
Well, opera began with an intent to resuscitate Greek drama, that is, modern opera as we know it.
I find the opera part in 'The Greatest Show on Earth' challenging.
Rod's a great singer. He's got a great voice, but there's no point to put a 30-piece orchestra behind him. I'm not going to knock anybody's right to make a living but you can always tell if somebody's heart and soul is into something, and I didn't think Rod was into it in that way.
My Mozart career began as a teenager in Los Angeles, singing arias from 'Le Nozze di Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni.'
The 'Missa Mirabilis' is a big work which was conceived for a large organ and a lot of singers.
I feel choir just has a great sense of power when used with an orchestra, or even by itself.
I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me.
One of the problems with musicals and opera is you can't ever hear all the words.
I would just like to say that opera is no longer about fat people in breastplates shattering wine glasses.
Opera is the original marriage of words and music, and there's a theatre element, a dramatic element. It's right up my alley.
Opera - above and beyond anything else - is about the music, and it should be about the music.
'Prima Donna' is my kind of love song to opera but it's not the full experience.
The point of opera is that people are moved by the emotions and music.
I just remember standing there, singing with the headphones on and the strings playing, just how wonderful that felt. But we so rarely got to go out and do it. Obviously, we don't carry a 70-80-piece orchestra with us when we do shows.
When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.
Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.
My real passion is for opera. It was born and developed by listening to records, and my dream as a child was to record entire operas when I grew up, and this dream came true.
Actually I do not listen to much opera music.
If you're venturing into territory that is slightly operatic, it all has to be done so carefully.
There is no greater thrill than to sing with a beautiful orchestra.
