My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.

The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: What are we going to do in five years' time? A completely different attitude.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

I didn't have a record player.