Old Americana vintage gangster stuff has a fantastical feel; it feels less dirty in a way. It feels like the opera of crime.
Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
So, I lived at the Beijing Opera, I ate there, I learned a craft. And the money we made went into the company.
My sister is an opera singer. I grew up going to her recitals. This whole time, I'm like, 'She's the singer. I'm just strumming along and yelling.'
I have always been pretty flexible. I could always jump and do all kinds of dangerous movements. In opera, I like to do it because it's fun, as long as it fits the role.
I was at La Fenice opera house back in 1991 with friends, and we started talking about a conductor whom none of us liked. Somehow there was an escalation, and we started talking about how to kill him, where to kill him. This struck me as a good idea for a book.
People may have thought that we changed a lot. I don't think we came in with that intention. Certain things I can't stomach. But I tried to be as collegial as possible. When you sign that contract, you're tied to that opera house to try your best. But every different team will play with a different intensity.
Soap opera seems to be a dirty word, but actually they are the most popular shows we have.
Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.
Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.
In no instance is there to be a musical or opera of Inherit the Wind because it doesn't sing. It's an intellectual play.
I remember once saying in a television interview that the only things I hadn't been in were the opera and the ballet. Two days later, I got a call from Lord Harewood, of the English National Opera, saying "Would you like to be in 'Ariadne auf Naxos?'"
It's much easier for me to be silly than it is to be serious on soap opera.
But nevertheless, it's music ultimately that matters in opera, and opera is a piece of music reaching out as a vision in sound reaching out to the world.
The point of opera is that people are moved by the emotions and music.
Every year I go to Broadway to see a musical - I like the music. I saw 'Mamma Mia;' I saw 'Les Miserables;' I saw 'Phantom of the Opera' like six, seven times.
Music - opera particularly - is a process which is endurable or successful only if it is achieved by people who love to collaborate.
I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.
When something like that happens, people want to try to find some dirt and make it more of a soap opera. But I think we both walked away with the door still open, if we want to do something together again. So yeah, I would call it a friendly break-up.
It never occurred to me that 'Phantom of the Opera' was the sort of subject that I'd want to do, because I just thought it was something that would be a bit jokey. 'Til I read the book.
Even the Beatles lived their lives as a soap opera.
One of the most wonderful memories in my life was when I sang at the Opera House in Sydney. I will never forget that. It is one of the most beautiful Houses I have ever sung in my life.
I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.
'The Phantom of the Opera' is the biggest thing I've ever done, bigger even than 'Cats' which, in itself, I never thought we'd top.
We used to have front-row seats for the Grand Opera House pantomime every year, and once the dame May McFettridge got me up on-stage.
A practical way to travel between the stars is a must-have for space opera, and a sine qua non for our frequently vaunted future as a galactic society.
You can make a debut in 25 operas. But to make a debut at the Metropolitan Opera is huge.
I sang opera, I sang show tunes. I got into a rock band for a while. I've sung a lot of different things.
Madeline Kahn is one of my favourite people in the entire world and one of the funniest. She was a talented Broadway star and also sang opera.
My grandma did opera singing for the better part of her life; she used to sing all over the place. My grandpa was a sax player, and he used to travel all over the place, too.
Let us be clear: I take ten times more money for a concert than for an opera performance.
The great opera composers were so good at their job, that the whole genre came to be built around the concept of the composer's vision.
Misery loves company. This is a Hollywood soap opera, and I'm not going to be a star in another Bryant soap opera.
I sing what I sing. And that's recitals and orchestra concerts. To appease - no, that's not the right word - let's say to satisfy - any opera urgings that my public has, I'll put in an aria.
It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
Take opera for example - to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.
