How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. – Gioacchino Antonio Rossini

I love Italian opera — its so reckless. Damn Wagner, and his bellowings at Fate and death. Damn Debussy, and his averted face. I like the Italians who run all on impulse, and dont care about their immortal souls, and dont worry about the ultimate. – D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

I never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager. – Edgar Allan Poe