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Amy Tan
Best-Selling Novelist
My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten. I remember, I was in kindergarten and there was a little girl who I didn't think was a very good artist. I thought I did a very careful house, you know, with the chimney, and the windows, and the trees, and she was more of an abstract artist. Hers was very loose, and I didn't think it was very good but they decided to pin hers up in the Principal's office. So that was like getting the "A." My mother wanted to know. Why wasn't my picture in that window? I was very wounded and frightened. You know? Why wasn't it in the window? I remember feeling that pressure from the time I was 5 years old.
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Amy Tan
Best-Selling Novelist
I had a partner, a business partner, who ended up cheating me, as a matter of fact. We had signed some papers to have this business together and I worked many long hours and one day we had a disagreement and I said I wanted to do more writing and he said that my strength was in project management. That was like taking care of clients, doing estimates, going after contractors and collecting bills. Horrible stuff. I'm not good at that. I hate that kind of thing. He said, "That's your strength. Writing is your weakest skill." I thought, I can either believe him and just keep doing this I disagreed with him a little bit more forcefully and I said that I get to decide too, because I'm a partner in this. He said, "No you're not," and I said, "What do you mean no, I'm not?" and he said "I never signed the papers." At that point I said I was quitting and he said "You can't quit. I'm firing you." I said, "Go ahead. Fire me." You know, this is my adversity, this is a low point in my life. He said, "So what do you think you're going to do?" I said "I'm going to freelance write." He said, "Oh, fat chance. You'll be lucky if you make a dime."
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Julie Taymor
Theater, Opera and Film Director
A young man with a propane lamp came on and set up a couple of propane lanterns to light up the space. A curtain was put up. And it filled with an audience of all-aged people for the next nine hours to see a human drama, an opera. And those people needed the light because these performers were performing for human beings. But something else there didn't need the artificial light. It needed a light that came from inside. And it's something that is probably the most important moment of my life, to go back and understand. Especially when I'm having trouble, like I've had all week with this bloody set. Why am I doing this? I don't have to do this opera. I can make movies. I can make money in Broadway theater. I'm doing it because I love the art form. And, therefore, at some point you put those blinders on and you say, "Okay. It's not working now, but I knew I had a vision there. Let's just keep on that track."
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Julie Taymor
Theater, Opera and Film Director
What happened here? How did I allow this production to be so ambitious and a set to be created that was impossible for this opera company with this limited amount of time and this budget? I allowed my imagination to just play out. Now, as of today, I can say, "All right." Because we had an okay performance last night. It's not perfect. It will never be perfect, not this set. We don't have time. So I have to deal with my discomfort with the fact that I am a perfectionist, and I know it should be better, but what I really bow down to now is that the music and the performers sing and dance, meaning that it's good. They're good. The technical stuff is still messy, and I can't do anything about it, which is annoying, because I've done much better productions than this that way.
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Kiri Te Kanawa
Beloved Opera Singer
I decided to do Cosi and Don Giovanni side by side. One night would be Don Giovanni, one night would be Cosi fan tutte. One night off. One night it would be Cosi fan tutte and one night it would be Don Giovanni. Night off. I did that four times, and nearly killed myself, because we all did. There was a little bit of a pact amongst us, Tom Allen, and I can't remember who the others were. But we all decided to do these roles, two of them, for Covent Garden. It was like a Covent Garden fest. I think there was most probably (Magic) Flute, Don Giovanni, Cosi and Figaro. I'm not sure if I -- I'm pretty sure I did the Don Giovanni and the Cosi. I can't remember exactly. And in the middle of it, I did the royal wedding. And I thought, "How dumb is this, to have got myself to this stage that I've just actually wiped myself out? There's going to be no voice left." So I went and stayed up in London for two weeks in a hotel. So I'd go and do the performance, I'd walk down back to the hotel. It wasn't very far from Covent Garden. And I'd get in that bed and I'd sleep all day. And I'd get up, get up for air, go and have a meal and go back to bed. And I'd shut up for the whole two weeks and just stayed in bed and sang, bed, sang. And that was it.
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Kiri Te Kanawa
Beloved Opera Singer
Kiri Te Kanawa: When I first auditioned at Covent Garden, I was going and I was singing for English National Opera. And they didn't want me, or they couldn't place me. So I went back to Covent Garden and I sang all sorts of things like Capuleti e i Montecchi. And then they'd say, "Would you please come back and sing this aria?" So I prepared and I'd sing it. Then they'd ask me to sing another aria, so I'd sing that. And then another one and another one. And after nine auditions, I thought, "Can't they make up their mind?" And at any rate, that was it. So I think after all of that time, they were trying to place what my voice was doing, and then finally decided that I would do these smaller roles, along with doing the Countess. And then from that point on, I stayed at Covent Garden for five years.
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