Mirella Freni

“What I would like to do is to help younger singers. It would be teaching, but not just teaching technique. I would want to study first the psychology of the younger singers, to find out what they need.”

“If you sing tight in the throat, and you sing onstage, and you have a big orchestra, it's finito. Your voice goes, 'Ciao.'”

“I try to have two or three days between performances.”

“I like Strehler, even though sometimes he is very hard, and he never wants to stop - but he is fantastic!”

“I have done my job honestly.”

“All the women of Modena know well how to cook and so do I.”

“When my daughter was a little girl, I try to stay in Europa, to stay home with her.”

“I love and respect my instrument. I was born with an instinct for what is right, the correct technique, and I have worked on that mostly myself.”

“At heart, I am a Cenerentola.”

“When a singer is too nervous, it is finito.”

“Mimi is a nice part for a young singer, although the third act is not so easy - Puccini's music is never simple! Later, I think Mimi developed along with me. It became more natural - there was more expression. I am always happy when I sing Mimi. It is never routine. Always, it is like the very first time.”

“If you push your voice too hard, you can destroy it.”

“When you encounter a genius like Kleiber, it makes you look at the role afresh, even if it is one you have done for many years.”

“It is not easy to sing the way Karajan wants.”

“As a small girl I enjoyed singing with my mother's brother. He taught me all kinds of melodies and I sang the ones I liked most. It did not matter if they were for tenor, baritone, bass, or any other voice.”

“I am a human, not a god, not a machine, and I can have a night when I sing with less power.”

“When you make a record, you are more relaxed, because you know if something is not good, you can repeat it. Onstage, you start to fight perhaps with the orchestra becasue the theater is big - this is not good.”

“I like making records because it is more relaxed than singing on stage. The problem for me is to find time to prepare for them in the way I wish. Because for me it is not interesting to do recordings just to do them.”

“It's not enough to have a beautiful voice. It's the depth of interpretation that is different.”

“I like to spend several months at least in a particular opera house.”