You used to queue for three days and two nights for tickets for Rubinstein. People stayed in the queue for the whole day.

Live life to the full, and become more curious every day. The more you find out about life, the richer your music-making will be.

I cannot be music director at La Scala and at Staatsoper. This would be unfair to one of the two institutions.

More and more, we're used to taking things in through the eyes rather than through the ears, and opera is more of a spectacle.

The problem with listening to music today is that there's so much of it everywhere. We've got used to hearing music without actually listening to it.

What the world is saying to us human beings is, 'Don't stick to the old ways, learn to think anew.' And that's what musicians do every day.