Famous quotes containing the words national and/or opera:
“There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; anything that is national is not scientific.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“I have witnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)