Placido Domingo Quotations

Every three days on average, I am alone on stage, facing the public.

If money was my only motivation, I would organize myself differently.

I feel like a little boy who is constantly offered new toys.

I feel at home in an orchestral score.

The voice collects and translates your bad physical health, your emotional worries, your personal troubles.

I then realized that I could never be satisfied again with the mere natural charm of my voice, that I had to constantly paint when singing, melting all the colors, expressing reds and blacks that had to be less primary but bursting with subtly colored combinations.

But enough joking. I am singing. This is all my life.

Let us be clear: I take ten times more money for a concert than for an opera performance.

The public is a part of my real life.

I have always studied my parts with the orchestral score and not with the piano reduction.

But I won't deprive myself of singing opera as long as my voice follows.

On the other hand, I have devoted so much energy to reach the top that I accept the stress of being there.

Should it happen tomorrow, I would fall to my knees to give thanks to God for such a career.

I am never wrong when it comes to my possibilities.

The atmosphere of the theater is my oxygen.

When I was a young man, I was a baritone, very far from possessing the whole range of the tenor then.

When a young artist is ready, one has to bring him into the limelight.

When facing symphonic orchestras which have played some works five thousands times, you have nothing to do.

In the last century, everybody was singing lower.

With my personal preparation at the piano, I can afford to hum at half voice.

Don't you think it astonishing that, at 58, I am still working at improving my career?

I was married at 16, a father at 17 and divorced at 18.

I will prove that a great conducting career is expecting me.

The press regularly proclaims my ambitions and my financial demands.

There are two big categories of people that do not go to the opera. Some who will never have the financial or cultural means of doing it.

Maestro Behr was a dynamic conductor who worked so well with soloists, the chorus and the musicians of the orchestra, all of whom respected him greatly. He will be deeply missed.

Francesca's productions are always beautifully balanced between the intimacy of the characters and the sweep of the epic, and I think that she will use the symbols of America brilliantly.

This circus games aspect has existed since the beginning of my career.

I want to do more commissions and the very important second and third productions of new works - giving them the life that will bring them into the standard repertoire.

I loved working with Spiro because he has the totality of colors in his performing palette. He is a singer of wonderful imagination and a real professional.

I really don't know how to do it -- a tour or a concert or if I just say, that's it, that's the last night.

Becoming artistic director at L.A. Opera feels less like a major change in my life there than a kind of upgrading,

The day is close that I quit singing,

What is sad is not to be able to do today what you have done in your youth. But what is good is to remember that - when you were able - you did it to the best of your ability.

I attended less than two years of Conservatory in Mexico City.

It is strange, but nobody is shocked when pop singers make a fortune in the space of two years.

My strength is my enthusiasm.

Singing becomes a form of therapy.

Young singers are much better educated musically, much better informed, through discs and videos, than I was.

We all have a destiny in accordance with the breadth of our shoulders. My shoulders are broad.

I'm not superstitious because it brings bad luck.

When working with an orchestra, you never spend more than 20 minutes per recording session.

This season, over eight productions, I am presenting four young tenors.

When you are confronted with an opera, you have to keep an eye on everything: the musicians, the chorus, the ballet, the singers, the staging.

The public made me and then encouraged me for many years, and my future even now depends upon it.

Between parts I was too old for and roles that were too overwhelming, out of reach then for my voice. I carved out a niche with the Wagnerian repertoire since I am attracted by its theatrical intensity.

To stay at my best, I have to stop talking during the preceding day.

Honestly, if the public still wants to hear me in some works, I have to go down a half step.

Sometimes pianists try to sound like singers: me personally, I try to sound like a Bösendorfer.

I hope I have given back half the joy music has given me.

The high note is not the only thing.

When it becomes clear that no one else shares your level of passion, you are where you belong.