I don't necessarily make much art myself, but after I wrote 'Warped Passages,' I was fortunate to get involved a little in the art world. I got invited to write a libretto for what we called a projective opera, and I also got invited to curate an art exhibit.
Now, all of a sudden, every college and every university has an opera theater. Every little city has its little group.
I perform in opera houses in the centres of big cities. We live in 20 acres of forest. You need that space to recover and renew.
I'm by no means an opera buff.
Opera combines pretty basic theater and poetry, but the storyline itself is actually quite poetic and, after some digital research, taking that actual content and seeing it as undeniably poetic.
My stepfather was quite into opera, but he'd play it when he was in a bad mood, so you'd hear this boom through the floor, Wagner, and you'd feel nervous.
What isn't for everybody shouldn't be for anybody: the world's opera houses are the reasons we have cardboard cities.
Music has always played a big part in my life and, believe it or not, in my soap opera career.
I'd love to come to Australia. I'd love to walk about the Sydney Opera House.
In my whole life, I've worn black tie three times. I can't tie the knot myself. Once, at the premiere of the opera, I got to La Scala before Domenico, and I was hiding in the corner until he arrived, and I said, 'Quick, you have to tie my tie, please!' Otherwise, I'll wear a tuxedo jacket with jeans and my bling-bling cross.
I had - and continued to have - great fun exploring the Revelation Space universe, but it was always clear to me that I wanted to write other kinds of books, even within what might be termed the fairly narrow overlapping genre categories of hard SF and space opera.
I wasn't the best in my class at the Royal Academy. There was a really good soprano and baritone who were technically better and are doing really well in opera now. But I was definitely the best mezzo-soprano in my class, because I was the only one of those!
One of the first things I created was music for the Paris opera's ballet troupe. That was the first time that electronic music was played at the opera. I really like the relationship between the music and the choreography.
I graduated from high school early so I could move to New York to do 'A Little Night Music' out of the New York City Opera.
My aunt Marcia Cope-Hart was in 'Phantom Of the Opera' in San Francisco for quite a few years when I was growing up, so we would go into the city a lot to see her.
My poor sister was forced to be in the plays that I would write. We would go to my grandma's retirement building and perform 'Phantom of the Opera.'
I guess my first professional experience was when my church choir director told my mother that I had a gift with my voice and said that I should think about auditioning, at 11 years old, for the chorus of our regional opera company.
I listen to lots of music, especially Bach, opera (all periods), German lieder, chamber music, and rock, old and new. I can't listen to music while I write. It's too absorbing.
I'm not glamorous, I don't have a look, I don't know anything about opera, I have no Italian, and I'm too old.
It's better to be on a soap opera to renew your career and following than to be on any other medium.
I love to play. I love, opera, hiking and museums. The one thing I don't do is sit. I have a tremendous amount of energy.
Opera? Just what the world needs: more fat women screaming.
We sang a lot of church music. We were very active Baptists. Supposedly, I started singing when I was being given a bath - at 14 months or something like that. My mother and dad both swore that was true, but I'm sure it wasn't very good... We always had the Metropolitan Opera on the radio on Saturday afternoons.
I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.
My mom was an opera singer, and she gave up her career to raise a family. But she also taught my sisters how to sing.
I didn't really like opera. I liked cheerleading and boys and, later, smoking. So my opera career was cut short when I was 15. My dad got sick, and we couldn't afford the lessons, so I stopped and became a cheerleader and wrecked my voice.
As a piano player, if 10 is concert level, I'd put myself at a 5 or a 6, but in a completely different genre than classical or opera. In terms of classical and opera, playing accompaniment, I'd say I was a 3.
I'm actually doing what I like doing, which is mixing opera music and classical music with soul and folk. And I was writing and talking about what I've actually experienced, and I don't think that's very common.
My mom was on a soap opera for 40 years, so I know about love and romance.
Opera tells stories that all ages can relate to: love, death, revenge, etc.
My family was very musical. My brother is an opera singer; my parents both sang.
Gray means being open-minded. I always look at the world that way; I'm able to hear both sides of an argument. I don't listen to opera, but I don't think it's good or bad; it's just its own thing. I can completely appreciate it.
It's important that the art forms communicate, whether it's the dance program with the jazz program or the classical program with the opera program, that these conversations becomes fluid.
I enjoy listening to opera at home, occasionally, but I would much rather see it than just listen to it.
My main object is to write, to keep learning. I always try to perfect my composition. But I do like writing film and opera music. I believe that it fulfills the needs of particular situations.
In the case of 'The Housewives,' I call the 'Housewives' sociology of the rich. I think it's just fun to watch. It's guilt-free gossiping that you can have. It's like the modern-day soap opera, in my mind.
