We're a depraved civilization. All this technology, all the computer games and the iPhones... nobody will sit for art anymore. What a dismaying state of humanity.

Opera is the ultimate art form. It has singing and music and drama and dance and emotion and story.

Art cannot be looked at as an elite, sacred event anymore. It has to be embraced as an accessible, popular form, which is what I believe theater is at its roots.

I knew ART was was going to give me this opportunity to expand my role as a director and finally let me have a seat at the table where I could get involved in these policy discussions and producing discussions and, frankly, the financial discussions.