Wagner Opera Quotes & Sayings

I kind of went into soap opera with 'General Hospital' in the '80s. It's like theater because every day it's a new script, which really doesn't have a beginning, middle or end like a play or a movie script. So you have to be on your toes and bring it every day. And you have to be spontaneous, which is really how I like to work. — Jack Wagner

As any opera fan knows, lawyers and judges do not fare well in most operas. Just consider the productions of 'Andrea Chenier,' 'Aida, Norma,' 'Billy Budd,' 'Peter Grimes,' 'The Crucible,' 'Lost in the Stars,' 'The Marriage of Figaro,' 'The Makropulos Case' and Wagner's 'Ring' cycle. Around 1810, the theme of justice emerged in opera. — Karen DeCrow

Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, fear and hatred. — Vandana Shiva

His small compliments and offhand remarks formed a new scripture, and in breathless conversations and lonely, dream-drunk nights they built whole theologies from them. — Carey Wallace

I love Italian opera - it's so reckless. Damn Wagner, and his bellowings at Fate and death. Damn Debussy, and his averted face. I like the Italians who run all on impulse, and don't care about their immortal souls, and don't worry about the ultimate. — D.H. Lawrence

I don't much like opera, either. Especially Wagner. There's something about Wagner that's just too piss-German, too fucking Bavarian for a Prussian like me. I like my music to be every bit as vulgar as I am myself. I like a bit of innuendo and stocking-top when a woman's singing a song. — Philip Kerr

I am under no illusion that I will ever be the greatest opera composer in the world, with Wagner and Verdi and Strauss before me. I think my work could fit very nicely into musicals, though. — Rufus Wainwright

I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide. — Mark Twain

And my singing, I don't think I could sing Wagner or opera, but I could probably carry a tune. I was in a musical once, but it was never performed. — Wallace Shawn

I maintain that Western popular culture at its best is worthy of respect and should be cherished as much as the operas of Wagner. — Ibn Warraq

I hate painting. — Howard Hodgkin

There isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting. — Mark Twain

If you put your mind to something, if you give 100 percent, if you sacrifice, and if you dedicate yourself, anything is truly possible. — Apolo Ohno

So, he eagerly drove from Basel to Bayreuth before the festival began to watch the last rehearsals of The Ring Cycle. As he watched, it hit him like Odin's bowel movement: the opera was shit. — Dylan Callens

You all think you have great ideas or Pokemon games, but if I actually listened to all of you and we combined all of your ideas in a game, it would be an unplayable monstrosity. You want a game with all the regions, but only the first generation Pokemons, yet all the legendary ones and such silly things. Whenever I receive one of these rants, I go to the development floor and read it out loud to all the Game Freak employees in a mocking voice, and we all laugh at you. — Satoshi Tajiri

I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral music; also some Handel, mostly songs and arias; I like Schubert's and Beethoven's chamber music and Sibelius' symphonies; for opera, I listen to Mozart and in recent years Wagner. — Colm Toibin

Because you're right. I want to control you, darlin'. Not in the way your fucking ex did, in a way that makes you come apart." A hot pulse of need shoots through me, igniting me with his words. He leans in closer and I have to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. "I want to fucking claim you. Tie you to my goddamn bed and force you to submit to me." He presses his mouth to the shell of my ear and I don't fight it, I wait. Wait for everything and more. "I want to do dirty things to you, Kenz. Things only dirty girls enjoy. I want to push every one of your limits so no man will ever be able to make you come like I do." His hot breath moves over my ear and I can't help the shiver that rolls through me. "I. Want. To. Own. You." He pulls back when he's finished. Both of our breathing thick with need. Holy shit. How do you respond to that? — River Savage

Wagner used to read the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there. — Ralph Vaughan Williams

There were several reasons for the disrepute into which opera fell. Among the first of these was the fact that opera bore the "taint" of Wagner about it. For at least thirty years after his death, the entire musical world made heroic efforts to throw off the terrific impact of Wagner. That is no reflection on his music. It simply means that each new generation must create its own music; and it was a very difficult thing to do, particularly in the opera house, immediately after Wagner had lived. — Aaron Copland

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. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

My wife was an opera singer, you know. She bellowed her way through Wagner as a Valkyrie. I married her and made her give up the theatre, to my eternal cost. She was to go on acting for myself alone. A performance at his own expense, lasting for more than twenty years, tends to wear out your spectator. — Jean Anouilh

There were men and women who appeared as fluid as ghosts, they could have been attending a burial out of curiosity, merely to recall how it had been when they were buried. — Jose Saramago

My greatest experiences in the theatre and the most religious experiences in my life - of which going to the opera is one for me - have been with the Romantic composers' repertoire: it's Wagner, it's Strauss, Verdi, Puccini. That era gets me every time. — Rufus Wainwright

The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means. — Richard Wagner

Tears are at times as eloquent as words. [Weeping hath a voice.] — Ovid

I can see Richard Wagner standing at the gates of heaven. "You have to let me in," he says. "I wrote Parsifal. It has to do with the Grail, Christ, suffering, pity and healing. Right?" And they answer, "Well, we read it and it makes no sense." SLAM. — Philip K. Dick

He's never coming back. Whether you go or you don't go. So get in the car, because it's the last thing you can do with him. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Wagner thought Rossini unserious; Rossini thought Wagner 'lacked sun'. Wagner also became the butt of a phrase Rossini had used down the years to describe musicians about whom he had certain reservations - "He has some beautiful moments but some bad quarters of an hour! — Richard Osborne

There are a lot of perks that come with fame, and with every positive there's a negative, and then it all kind of balances out. — Ashton Kutcher

One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend to hear it a second time. — Gioachino Rossini

A soccer game is a Wagner opera. The narrative sets up, the tension builds, the music ebbs and flows, the strings, the horns, more tension, and suddenly a moment of pure bliss, trumpet-tongued Gabriel sings, and gods descend from Olympus to dance - this peak of ecstasy. — Rabih Alameddine

I think that the implication of King's assassination has not been fully appreciated. — Henry Louis Gates

It is necessary to disassociate oneself from those who would interfere with your success in enlightenment, in your career, in your life. They are not worth it. — Frederick Lenz

Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film. — Isabelle Huppert

I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me. — Elvis Costello

To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost. — Barbara Tuchman