Quotes from Sondra Radvanovsky

I love the tragic side. I don't do 'happy' onstage. I like the dark, the disturbed.

Artists shouldn't deal with business stuff; that's not what we're trained in, and most of us aren't good at it.

When I teach master classes, I tell young singers if the foundation isn't good, the house will crumble.

People have this idea that opera singers are overweight and sit at home eating bonbons. But I consider myself an athlete.

I tell young singers not to listen to themselves. What I hear is not what you hear.

For sure, one moment really defined the path that I was to take in the future, and that was when I won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York in April of 1995. I had just turned 25 two days before the finals concert, and when I won, I had no idea how my life would change because of it.

You have to be in tune with your body and know when your body is saying, 'That's enough, you're done for the day.' If you over-fatigue and are totally stressed, you get sick. And if I get sick, I can't work.

Temperament can really take a toll on the voice. If you get tight in your body with the acting, then you can get tight in your voice. And then you can get tired, and you can damage yourself vocally.

When you do a 'messa di voce,' that means you start soft, you crescendo into loud - and then you go back to soft again. Some people call it circus tricks, but in bel canto, it's really written into the music.

Even when I'm not onstage singing, there's always music going on in my head. It's a curse and a blessing in a way - it's sitting in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, while the music keeps playing in your head - especially when you're trying to learn something new and you're trying to memorize it and get everything.

I always think of my father when I sing arias about loss and love and longing. It gave me that definite deep sorrow that one can only get from life experience, you know?

You go to the gym to make sure you have the stamina to breathe in the corsets.

I absolutely love Canada, and I wouldn't live anywhere else. It's half American and half European, and I really enjoy that. And the people are just fantastic - nicer than any people in the world.

When I am on the opera stage, I am playing someone else. In recitals, I even have the chance to talk to the audience, which is something you don't get to do in opera.

You went to your first Broadway play or musical at some point, right? Come to opera.

Opera - above and beyond anything else - is about the music, and it should be about the music.

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

It's the worst feeling, coming back after a performance when you are on a real high, and you go back alone to an apartment or a hotel room. People think we sit in hotels and eat bon bons. But the lifestyle can be very stressful.