CONDUCTORS You need a conductor who's as strong as the director. The downside is that if there isn't a pecking order, you may have conflict. But to me, if you get the right kind of conflict it produces really significant results.

LANGUAGE IN OPERA Part of me will always want to hear things sung in the original language, but there's something about the immediate emotional and intellectual response from singing in English to an Irish audience, which is what Monteverdi wrote it for, because he was writing in Italian for an Italian audience.

AUDIENCES There has to be a dialogue. There's a horrible thing where the audience sit there, and you're like a waiter, you serve the thing to them, and they're not going to like everything on the menu. That's not how it should be. There should be an engagement.