Music with Ease > Opera > Opera Quotes > Gioacchino Rossini Quotes

Give me a laundry list and I will set it to music.
-- Rossini, attributed

Thou knowest, O Lord, as well as I, that really I am only a composer of opera buffa.
-- Rossini, dedication to Petite Messe solennelle (1864)

Rossini, in music, is the genius of sheer animal spirits. It is a species as inferior to that of Mozart, as the cleverness of a smart boy is to that of a man of sentiment; but it is genius nevertheless.
-- Leigh Hunt, Going to the Play Again (1828)

The first characteristic of Rossini's music is speed -- a speed which removes from the soul all the sombre emotions that are so powerfully evoked within us by the slow strains in Mozart. I find also in Rossini a cool freshness, which, measure by measure, makes us smile with delight.
-- Stendahl (1783-1842), Life of Rossini (1824)

The point is... a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn't even have a sense of humor. I tell you... there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part of the La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony.
-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)


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Quotable Opera: Aria Ready for a Laugh?

What they said when they were not singing.

Here are hundreds of quotes that highlight the wit, wisdom and lunacy of the opera world. Luminaries Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Caruso, Ruffo, Chaliapin, Melba, Sills, Callas, Toscanini, Beecham and other more recent personalities have had lots to say about opera, themselves and each other.

There are venomous quotes from critics and emotional outbursts by performers and listeners. One hapless society matron tried complimenting soprano Eileen Farrell at a reception in her honor with "My dear, you reminded me so much of Kate Smith." The comparison so rattled the diva Farrell that she blurted out, "Well, kiss my ass!" and stormed out.

Austrian conductor Franz Schalk is noted for the most emblematic words about opera life: "Every theatre is an insane asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for the incurables."

This book will be a delight for aficionados of opera.

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Opera Antics and Anecdotes

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