Opera Quotes

“Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.”
― Robert Benchley

“Love is a rebellious bird,
that nobody can tame,
and you call him quite in vain,
if it suits him not to come.”
― Ludovic Halévy

“None of us can choose where we shall love...”
― Susan Kay, Phantom

“Floating, falling, sweet intoxication. Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation. Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in to the power of the music of the night.”
― Charles Hart, The Phantom of the Opera: Sheet Music Piano/Vocal

“They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Theatres are curious places, magician's trick-boxes where the golden memories of dramtic triumphs linger like nostalgic ghosts, and where the unexplainable, the fantastic, the tragic, the comic and the absurd are routine occurences on and off the stage. Murders, mayhem, politcal intrigue, lucrative business, secret assignations, and of course, dinner.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Well, basically there are two sorts of opera," said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. "There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh I am dyin', oh oh oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“My mind has touched the farthest horizons of mortal imagination and reaches ever outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain. . . . For as long as I live, no woman will ever look on me in love.”
― Susan Kay, Phantom

“The Departure Aria, a very important and romantic song -
This damn door sticks,
This damn door sticks
It sticks no matter what I do.
It is marked 'pull' and indeed I am pulling
Perhaps it should be marked 'push'?”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“The only thing worse than opera is someone who hums along with opera.”
― Josh Lanyon, A Dangerous Thing

“Dedication: My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“I can see Richard Wagner standing at the gates of heaven. "You have to let me in," he says. "I wrote Parsifal. It has to do with the Grail, Christ, suffering, pity and healing. Right?" And they answer, "Well, we read it and it makes no sense." SLAM.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“For the love of God, unless you’re prepping for Rigoletto at the Met, go easy on the eyeliner.”
― Cheryl Cory

“You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes.”
― David Markson

“(Referring to the piano's natural shape) Isn't it a shame when those big fat opera singers lean against the pianos and bend them?”
― Victor Borge

“The opera…is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.”
― H. L. Mencken

“Opera lovers may be the narrowest people in the world.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“Without a doubt it was Dr. Urbino's most contagious initiative, for opera fever infected the most surprising elements in the city and gave rise to a whole generation of Isoldes and Otellos and Aidas and Siegfrieds. But it never reached the extremes Dr. Urbino had hoped for, which was to see Italianizers and Wagnerians confronting each other with sticks and canes during the intermissions.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“La dictadura es como una aria y nunca llega a ser ópera.”
― Emilia Pardo Bazán

“That´s the problem with planning a late night supper after the opera, not only does the hero or the heroine die singing, but you end up famished after the last notes of the finale.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“You want to feel that you belong to something higher, to something even beyond this universe, then go to the opera!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The dictatorship is like an aria that never becomes an opera.”
― Emilia Pardo Bazán

“Opera has the power to warn you that you have wasted your life. You haven't acted on your desires. You've suffered a stunted, vicarious existence. You've silenced your passions. The volume, height, depth, lushness, and excess of operatic utterance reveal, by contrast, how small your gestures have been until now, how impoverished your physicality; you have only used a fraction of your bodily endowment, and your throat is closed.”
― Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire

“Ah! Pauvre ami, comme il m'aimait!”
― Massenet Jules

“Such immediate sliding into fiction under the guise of history reveals a remarkable fluidity between history and fiction that, while pertinent to innumerable portrayals of historical personages of other eras and nationalities, seems to acquire a particularly transformational narrative power in the case of Don Carlos.”
― Maria-Cristina Necula Ph.D., The Don Carlos Enigma: Variations Of Historical Fictions

“Non c’è bisogno di inventare nulla. La vita è abbastanza straordinaria di per sé.”
― Lucia Berlin, Manual para mujeres de la limpieza

“He had never been to an opera but had been told the women in it sounded like cats whose tails were stepped on, and his instincts told him he would hate a performance of screeching women.”
― Isabel Tutaine, When Mist and Brine Touch

“SANG PENARI

V — Wirasa para Bayang Penanda

Pada malam di mana kota kehilangan listrik
dan cahaya hanya datang dari bara rokok para gelandangan,
Sang Penari memasuki ruang kosong
yang seakan dibangun dari gema ribuan panggung yang pernah runtuh.

Di sana, bayang-bayang empat maestro dunia
menunggu seperti para begawan dari peradaban yang jauh lebih tua.

—Mata kosong dari Teater Noh — “Hannya”—

Topeng iblis perempuan dari Jepang kuno itu
menggantung di udara seperti wajah kesedihan yang diawetkan.
Setiap denting langkah Sang Penari
menghidupkan memori ratusan aktor
yang pernah mengabdi pada ritual panggung
yang mengaburkan batas antara tubuh dan arwah.

Hannya berbisik:
“Kemarahan yang kau sembunyikan adalah dewa yang kelaparan.”

Dan Sang Penari pun bergerak
seolah sedang kerasukan,
memanggil monster yang ia takutkan.

—Bayang Lorca di Granada—

Dari kejauhan terlihat siluet Federico García Lorca,
penyair yang mati karena rezim yang membenci imajinasi.
Tubuhnya yang tak ditemukan
mengirimkan resonansi gelap ke dalam tarian itu.

Ia membawa gitar patah,
dan setiap petikan memanggil ingatan perang saudara
yang pernah memakan generasi muda Spanyol.

“Tarianmu bukan hiburan,” katanya,
“itu adalah pemberontakan sunyi terhadap sejarah yang lupa belajar.”

Sang Penari menekuk tubuhnya
seperti ingin memecahkan waktu
dan dari gerakan itu terpancar bintang-bintang.

—Siluet Anna Pavlova — The Dying Swan—

Dari kabut lampu panggung, muncul bayang ratu balet itu,
gaunnya tampak koyak, sayap putihnya hitam terbakar
seperti burung yang gagal melintasi api neraka.

Ia menari pelan,
penuh luka yang dilipat-lipat menjadi keanggunan.

“Tak ada kecantikan yang lahir dari kemenangan,”
bisiknya seperti bulu angsa yang tercerabut dari akarnya.
“Kecantikan hanya lahir dari kehancuran yang kau terima tanpa menunduk.”

Dan Sang Penari mengikuti geraknya:
sebuah tarian kematian yang memurnikan diri.

—Bayang Bhairava — Penari Kosmik India—

Dari dasar ruangan muncul langkah-langkah keras
dari Bhairava, aspek tergelap dari Śiva,
penari yang menari untuk menghancurkan dunia
agar dunia dapat dilahirkan kembali.

Rambut gimbalnya menyulut angin hitam,
lonceng-lonceng di pergelangan kakinya
menggetarkan mimpi buruk yang sejak lama ia tinggalkan.

“Kalau kau ingin hidup baru,” suara Bhairava membelah udara,
“tarianmu harus membinasakan dirimu yang lama.”

Dan Sang Penari mulai berputar dengan sangat cepat,
meninggalkan serpih-serpih identitas yang terlepas dari tubuhnya
seperti sisik ular yang terkelupas.

Agustus 2025”
― Titon Rahmawan

“Sang Penari

VI — Perjumpaan Puncak — Litani Penanggalan Roh—

Keempat empu itu mengitari Sang Penari seperti konstelasi gelap yang menolak memberikan arah.

Topeng Hannya—membuka rahasia luka batin yang ia simpan sejak remaja.

Lorca—memberinya bahasa untuk mengutuk ketidakadilan yang ia alami.

Pavlova—mengajarinya bahwa keanggunan adalah bentuk terakhir dari keputusasaan.

Bhairava—menuntut ia menghabisi semua bentuk “aku” yang masih ia genggam.

Sang Penari bergerak di tengah mereka,
gerakannya membentuk huruf-huruf tak dikenal
seperti alfabet kuno dari peradaban yang hilang.

Ia menari sampai tubuhnya bukan tubuh,
waktu bukan waktu,
dan seluruh ruangan berubah menjadi ruang batin.

Di puncak putaran terakhir,
ia merasakan dirinya terbelah:
separuh menjadi angin,
separuh menjadi debu,
separuh lagi menjadi sesuatu yang tak memiliki wujud
namun menyimpan kecerdasan tak terlukiskan.

Dan tiba-tiba, sunyi.
Hannya jatuh menjadi topeng kosong.
Lorca lenyap seperti tembakan yang tak punya peluru.
Pavlova memudar menjadi serbuk putih.
Bhairava kembali menjadi cahaya merah gelap
yang mengalir ke tanah seperti darah dari dimensi lain.

Sang Penari berdiri sendirian.
Tapi ia bukan lagi manusia.
Ia adalah penanda,
arsip hidup tentang apa yang terjadi
ketika seseorang menari sampai inti jiwanya menghilang.

Dan dari ruang gelap itu,
sebuah suara tanpa bentuk terdengar:

“Kini kau bukan lagi penari.
Kau adalah tarian itu sendiri.”

Agustus 2025”
― Titon Rahmawan

“Of course, in a sense, all opera is absurd.”
― Stephen Walsh, The Beloved Vision: A History of Nineteenth Century Music