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.
“To see him there lifeless and breathless was very emotional for me. But I held myself together because I knew he's very much alive in his spirit, and that was just a shell. But I kissed him on his forehead, and I hugged him, and I touched him and I said, 'Michael, I'll never leave you. You'll never ”