An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
Maria CallasRead
I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the struggle of balancing personal identity with societal expectations.
In this quote, Maria Callas expresses a desire to embrace her own individuality and artistic expression while feeling the weight of the expectations set upon her by the legendary soprano, La Callas. This duality highlights the conflict many artists face between their personal aspirations and the standards imposed by their predecessors or society at large, illustrating a broader theme of identity in the arts.
In practice
In a speech at an art exhibition, to encourage artists to stay true to themselves.
An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
First I lost my voice, then I lost my figure and then I lost Onassis.
I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best.
What is there in life if you do not work? There is only sensation, and there are only a few sensations— you cannot live on them. You can only live on work, by work, through work. How can you live with self-respect if you do not do things as well as lies in you?
To sing is an expression of your being, a being which is becoming.
I don't need the money, dear. I work for art.
I like fashion to go down to the street, but I can't accept that it should originate there.
The best art is realized when you can share the experience of making of it and not just the presentation of it, so that the audience is part of the creation and not just part of the consumption. Then it becomes much more full-bodied and robust.
We live in capitalism, and capitalism is defined by the production line, and the production line is defined by specificity. If you see yourself as an artist, which I do, then you can't be limited by that. You can't let somebody tell you, 'Well, you can only draw this kind of picture or write that kind of book.'
Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.
Over time, I have come to see the work of literature less as narrating the world than "seeing the world with words." From the moment he begins to use words like colors in a painting, a writer can begin to see how wondrous and surprising the world is, and he breaks the bones of language to find his own voice. For this he needs paper, a pen, and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time.
Do you know what I've learned? That although ecstasy is the ability to stand outside yourself, dance is a way of rising up into space, of discovering new dimensions while still remaining in touch with your body. When you dance, the spiritual world and the real world manage to coexist quite happily. I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies.
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