“Whereas 'Avatar' and other movies get shocks out of their three-dimensionality, 'Gatsby' is going to be about inviting the audience into this larger-than-life drama, letting them almost be inside the room rather than looking at it through the window. I think it will really work.”

“Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.”