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 perform in opera houses in the centres of big cities. We live in 20 acres of forest. You need that space to recover and renew.

It's the worst feeling, coming back after a performance when you are on a real high, and you go back alone to an apartment or a hotel room. People think we sit in hotels and eat bon bons. But the lifestyle can be very stressful.

When you do a 'messa di voce,' that means you start soft, you crescendo into loud - and then you go back to soft again. Some people call it circus tricks, but in bel canto, it's really written into the music.