Top 33 Opera Singer Quotes

Whether you’re an opera singer, a legislator or customer service operator, there is a way that we can find common ground with our audience – be they young or old, Democrats or Republicans, rich or poor, religious or secular.

I began by listening to my mother’s collection of Amelita Galli-Curci and Lily Pons records, and then was taken (at age eight) to hear Pons at a Met performance of Lakme. It was at that moment that I decided to become an opera star. Not just an opera singer, but an opera star!

I originally wanted to be an opera singer. I studied classical voice at the University of Washington but soon realised I didn’t have the instrument or the discipline. The road for opera singers is more difficult than for actors.

It’s quite a famous story that takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Germans, French, and Scottish are trying to make peace one night and they bury their dead and they play football. I play a German opera singer, in German, which I never have so I am really excited about that.

My family was very supportive of whatever I wanted because my grandfather was an opera singer. My dad’s dad. So my dad has an appreciation for the arts, and he let me choose my own path.

My mother was an opera singer and my father is a clarinet player, composer and conductor.

My mom was a folk singer and Celtic harpist. My dad was in a barbershop quartet and my great grandma was an opera singer. As I grew up, I discovered pop music and Top 40 radio, but it was in the ’90s, so music was very different then – it was really lyrical.

To be a famously successful opera singer. I wanted that since I was eight.

I was an acting opera singer, and that’s one of the reasons I left opera.

Everyone in my family is an artist. Both my parents are painters and my mom’s an opera singer. I was never shown any other way to process life.

My mom was an opera singer. She did all the classical music, and I heard it. I know every opera. I know every classical piece of music.

I have never called myself an opera singer. Other people do, but I always call myself a classical singer. I’d love to do opera, but I’m still too young and I don’t want to do it until I’m ready. I realise that when I do that it’s going to be… up for discussion, shall we say, so I want to get it right.

I had the working class ethic. I wanted to make a living and there weren’t many opportunities for an opera singer in Yorkshire, so I went onto the club circuit.

Then I trained as an opera singer for four years before I started singing professionally as a pop act.

I had this exceptional classical music voice. If I’d followed a true path for my talent, I would have ended up being an opera singer.

For me, a diva is like the great opera singer, the great film star – out of reach, in their own world, with a real gift for invention: attention-demanding performance artists with a flamboyant, compelling sense of their own importance so special and inimitable it verges on the alien.

My father was an opera singer who constantly tried to persuade me not to enter into an artistic career.

I know I’m an opera singer, but we’re actors, too.

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 think my great-grandpa was an opera singer or something.

A cabaret song has got to be written – for the middle voice, ideally – because you’ve got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer.

An opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level, you need to refrain from activities so as to be able to express this power.

My family was very musical. My brother is an opera singer; my parents both sang.

I had classical training but I don’t consider myself an opera singer though.

My mom worked as a pharmacist, but she is one of the best storytellers I know. My sister is a gospel and opera singer and my brother, who passed away, was a writer.

When you are up close to an opera singer, hearing this incredible volume of noise coming from a human being – it’s beyond belief.

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.

The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly every modern opera makes great dramatic and physical demands.

My mother was an opera singer and my grandmother a concert pianist, and they only liked classical music. If I put on a pop record, they would tell me to turn it off, so I only listen to classical.

Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.

I am rooted in flamenco. At 13, I fell in love with it, but I couldn’t sing it. To sing flamenco is like being a kind of opera singer. You have to learn how.

I wasn’t cut out to be an opera singer, but it was a nice fantasy for a teenager growing up in Hungary during the Stalinist era.

I’ve played football with George Best, the greatest footballer that ever lived. That doesn’t make me a footballer. And I’ve sung a duet with Pavarotti. That doesn’t make me an opera singer. I can write and I have a story to tell, but I’m not going to make a career out of it.