Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Quotes

You can’t do opera when already from the 10th row you can only see little dolls on the stage. In such an enormous space you can’t put much faith in the personal presence of the individual singer, which is reflected in facial expressions, among other things.

Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plow. The trick is just to wake thmem up, to sharpen their ears for what’s already there in the music.

Which is why, in my lieder concerts, I always strove, when possible, to sing only the works of a single composer, so that the audience could be gradually drawn into a particular creative genius’ way of thinking, and could follow him.

When you go out onto the stage, all the preparation has to be forced into your subconscious. For the moment of the performance, we all have to return to a new level of unconsciousness. All the reflection and all the doubts have to be laid aside before you start.

What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out.

Unfortunately, it happens all too seldom that you really disappear behind a work, that you are no longer audible as an interpreter.