Sondra Radvanovsky

I would have to say that my very first encounter with the arts was when my mother bought me my first record player when I was six years old as well as a Karen Carpenter record.

When I am on the opera stage, I am playing someone else. In recitals, I even have the chance to talk to the audience, which is something you don't get to do in opera.

When I teach master classes, I tell young singers if the foundation isn't good, the house will crumble.

I tell young singers not to listen to themselves. What I hear is not what you hear.

I don't like happy stuff. I'm not funny.

For me, bel canto is medicine for the voice.

My roots really instilled Chicago values in me.

People have this idea that opera singers are overweight and sit at home eating bonbons. But I consider myself an athlete.

You have to be in tune with your body and know when your body is saying, 'That's enough, you're done for the day.' If you over-fatigue and are totally stressed, you get sick. And if I get sick, I can't work.

HD is not forgiving. Once you see your face for the first time in a movie cinema, you run straight to the gym.

The vocal cords are a muscle, and like any other muscle in the body, they can be strained. So you have to warm up.

I am so proud to call myself Canadian! Thank you, Canada, for welcoming me with open arms!

Trying to look glamorous while singing is not easy.

I guess my first professional experience was when my church choir director told my mother that I had a gift with my voice and said that I should think about auditioning, at 11 years old, for the chorus of our regional opera company.

For sure, one moment really defined the path that I was to take in the future, and that was when I won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York in April of 1995. I had just turned 25 two days before the finals concert, and when I won, I had no idea how my life would change because of it.

Opera tells stories that all ages can relate to: love, death, revenge, etc.

I always think of my father when I sing arias about loss and love and longing. It gave me that definite deep sorrow that one can only get from life experience, you know?

I have the best job in the whole world because I get paid to do something I love. How many people do you know who can say that?

If I can transport audiences for the three or four hours they're at the opera, to make them forget all of their worries, the bills they have to pay and all that, then I've done my job. That, for me, is very gratifying.

I think Chicagoans have a great set of values. You know what I mean? Kindness. Morals. Ethics. People in Chicago do the right thing. If somebody falls on the street, someone will actually stop and help them up. That doesn't happen in certain other cities.

I think the power of opera has been shifted from the music to the director, because this is a very visual age that we live in.

Opera - above and beyond anything else - is about the music, and it should be about the music.

What if you didn't have education for sports? People with a natural inclination for sports, athletes without any kind of education, without any kind of training, they would just be couch athletes instead of the world class Olympians that we have.

Temperament and tightness often go together. But if you're tight, you can't sing. So I have to have that tension in my body but not in my voice.

Artists shouldn't deal with business stuff; that's not what we're trained in, and most of us aren't good at it.