(274 quotes found)
“OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word _simulation_ is from _simia_, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for his model _Simia audibilis_ (or _Pithecanthropos stentor_) --the ape that howls.The actor apes a man --at least in shape; The opera performer apes and ape.”
Ambrose Bierce
“To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony.”
Billie Burke
“There is an old proverb much in evidence now at the [National Opera]: If you want the flowers in your garden to be glorious and to smell good, you must risk an occasional stink.”
Lord Harewood
“In any case, the task of finding fresh approaches to opera and to choral music will be inherited by the future.”
George Crumb
“The opera always loses money. That's as it should be. Opera has no business making money.”
Rudolf Bing
“Opera? Just what the world needs: more fat women screaming.”
Peter Boyle
“everything from blues to opera!”
Jelly Roll Morton
“The most important innovation for 'Desperate Housewives' wasn't its being a prime-time soap opera, ... That's played well since 'Peyton Place.' Rather, it was its post-modern treatment. It worked well as prime-time escapism, but also there was a darker current that played like a cross between 'American Beauty' and 'Dynasty.'”
John Rash
“This opera is my Nunc Dimittis, in that it dismisses me peacefully and convinces me I have achieved.”
E. M. Forster
“Whenever I go to an opera, I leave my sense and reason at the door with my half guinea, and deliver myself up to my eyes and my ears”
Lord Chesterfield
