When you go to a show on opening night, or even the second performance, it is at the very beginning of what it will become. By the end of this run, the show will actually be what it is intended to be.

It was at Juilliard that I realized that being a singer encompasses so many things that I am interested in. Literature, languages, physics, history, art. You really get to explore so many things.

Let's be clear: I love singing at the Met.

As a young singer, you have to get experience somehow, to try things out and grow as a singer. They way you do that is by going through the ranks and singing at companies like Opera Birmingham. It's a perfect place to foster a career.

Motherhood and marriage are the best bits of my life now. Who would have thought I would be enjoying that?

The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes - or just by staring into space.

Even the very youngest children already are perfectly able to discriminate between the imaginary and the real, whether in books or movies or in their own pretend play. Children with the most elaborate and beloved imaginary friends will gently remind overenthusiastic adults that these companions are, after all, just pretend.

I love being a wife and homemaker - because it's my choice. My husband doesn't expect me to do it. I don't mind doing things for him because he does so much for me; we both feel that way so there is no power struggle.