Famous quotes containing the words american and/or opera:
“Business is, emphatically, the amusement of Americans, and, to be in keeping with their character, every thing written for their amusement should partake of the useful.”
—H., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. American Ladies Magazine (February 1828)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)