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.

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

My strength is my enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

In the last century, everybody was singing lower.

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

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

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.

Singing becomes a form of therapy.

The public is a part of my real life.

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

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.

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

The press regularly proclaims my ambitions and my financial demands.

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

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.

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

The high note is not the only thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am never wrong when it comes to my possibilities.

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

I feel at home in an orchestral score.

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

The atmosphere of the theater is my oxygen.

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

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

We're gonna try and bring on all the different aspects of horror movie making and bring on guests and show all these old '50's B movies. Not the real corny ones, the real cool ones.

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

If we're not on them, they go back to their old ways.

If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.

Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.

In those days, when you got boxed, that was it. A lot of old people were there because somebody wanted the farm. It was about property. People are treated like property.

I think people feel starved of nice, glamorous entertainment. They want to see costumes and gaiety and a singer; old-fashioned entertainment - it won't die easily.

Not that I wouldn't have been equally happy to see the old buddies and see it all start up again that way. But this was more of a work situation, and a very good one.

Yippee! I can't believe I made it. It feels like a long haul to get here. I'm so fine with it. People want you to have some sort of breakdown, but I'm relieved to be 40 years old, and I've lived a life.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.