Patricia Barber Quotes

“Ovid was a Roman poet who was putting a spin on Greek mythology,” 
“I just couldn't believe what a wonderful writer he was--how funny and smart and brilliant are these characters he created. He doesn't flesh them out so I can understand why opera composers and librettists throughout history have used Ovid again and again.”
Patricia Barber

“I only thought of this project as a real possibility when I was thinking of applying for the Guggenheim Fellowship. It seemed the right kind of project because it was so rarified, and my life as it was couldn't justify all the time spent on research that would be necessary.”
Patricia Barber

“I forced myself to study as much as I actually wrote. I had always studied songwriters like Cole Porter and Rogers and Hart. With the Fellowship, I used the time to study the great poets and the great classical composers, especially Chopin, some Verdi. And Schubert! His meter. His song. I would play them on the piano and I have notebooks charting the harmonies. Sometimes you'll hear in opera how a melodic line can float over a harmony--justify an unusual harmonic change. That was definitely something I learned during this year that was really a great lesson for me, very different from a Cole Porter kind of a song.”
Patricia Barber