Inspirational Quotations on Opera

A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist

The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist

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, Brunnhilde, 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. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist

Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic

The banging and slamming and booming and crashing were something beyond belief. On Lohengrin
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist

I wouldnt mind seeing opera die. Ever since I was a boy, I regarded opera as a ponderous anachronism, almost the equivalent of smoking.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect

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 (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic

I never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet

Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.
—Hannah More