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In opera, everyone's watching from a fixed viewpoint, and that really challenges you. Lighting, the sets, stage groupings, the music-but doesn't relate too much to film.

Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

If you're a movie actor, you're on your own - you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.

In the theater, you go from point A to point Z, building your performance as the evening progresses. You have to relinquish that control on a film.

When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.

When you have the cast, the sets, the lights, an opera takes on its own life. I'm not one of those directors who marches in with a set of plans.

Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don't manage that - but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.

I love to conduct opera.

In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event.

The word 'theatrical' makes me cringe, because it suggests a performance is staged, put on, rehearsed. And while all this is true for an opera, I believe the act of singing and performing should always be honest, raw, guttural.