Quotes by Gian Carlo Menotti

About Gian Carlo Menotti:

Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, along with over two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.

Gian Carlo Menotti

I have always felt that art, especially music, is but a demonstration of God.

Gian Carlo Menotti

I'm not very sympathetic to the tendency to bring art to the people.

Gian Carlo Menotti

I thought conceptual art was a joke.

Gian Carlo Menotti

A Schubert song, the A-major chord at the opening of Wagner's 'Lohengrin' - such incredible beauty is a mystery, the divinity of music.

Gian Carlo Menotti

One lived in the impression that nobody could ever compete with the 'Nutcracker' or 'A Christmas Carol.'

Gian Carlo Menotti

Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out.

Gian Carlo Menotti

Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.

Gian Carlo Menotti

God gives you the gift of melody or He doesn't - it's as simple as that.

Gian Carlo Menotti

The Greeks said the artist doesn't actually have to travel and look around. You stay where God has put you, and you dig as deep as you can. This is what I've done.

Gian Carlo Menotti

Waiting and hoping are the whole of life, and as soon as a dream is realized it is destroyed.

Gian Carlo Menotti

I should have worked harder in my life. I suffer from a guilt complex.

Gian Carlo Menotti

I have a heart problem, so I have to simplify my life and be content with memories and friends and music.

Gian Carlo Menotti

It takes a Bobby White to make a tired 90-year-old composer write a song about love.

Gian Carlo Menotti

My advice to composers is, 'Try to reach 90, and everyone will love you.'

Gian Carlo Menotti

A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.

Gian Carlo Menotti

Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears.

Gian Carlo Menotti

People ask me whether I'm religious. Well, in a certain way, I am.

Gian Carlo Menotti

I loathe my body. The liver spots, the sagging flesh.

Gian Carlo Menotti

Writing beautiful melodies is not fashionable because it is very difficult to do.

Gian Carlo Menotti

Author Bio

  • NameGian Carlo Menotti
  • DescriptionComposer and librettist
  • BornJuly 7, 1911
  • DiedFebruary 1, 2007
  • CountryItaly
  • ProfessionConductor; Film Director; Composer; Musicologist; Music Educator; Librettist
  • WorksAmahl And The Night Visitors; Amelia Goes To The Ball; The Old Maid And The Thief; The Consul
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Peabody Award