Whether or not we establish freedom rests with ourselves..

No one will ever touch Elvis.

Necessity is the author of change..

If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so..

I regard the people as a great being, inspired by a single idea. This is my problem. I strove to solve it in this opera..

The opera ghost really existed.

Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic s….

If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me..

When I've seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can't tell you what that phenomenon is..

Listen to presences inside poems..

The strength you've insisted on assigning to others is actually within yourself..

Here we are now, entertain us..

Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process..

Love can tame the wildest..

It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of co….

The word "theatrical" makes me cringe, because it suggests a performance is staged, put on, rehearsed. And while all this is true for an opera, I bel….

Are you suggesting that we reopen the Opera with a murder as an added attraction?.

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..

In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event..

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 pe….

As far as I was concerned the important thing was that the music was getting the attention as well as me so it was always a great way to get more of ….