Creativity Quote by Placido Domingo

There is defiance in that "won't", but it’s the quiet, lived-in kind: the stubborn refusal of a performer to let the calendar, critics, or polite expectations write his ending. Placido Domingo frames opera not as a career move or a public service, but as self-possession. "Deprive myself" flips the usual narrative - that the audience is the beneficiary and the singer the giver. In his telling, singing isn’t a luxury he bestows; it’s something he’s entitled to as long as his body allows it.

The hinge phrase is "as long as my voice follows". It’s deceptively humble, an appeal to the only judge that matters in a singer’s life: the instrument itself. Not management, not legacy, not the commentariat. It also smuggles in the fear every vocalist carries: the voice can leave without warning, and the self has to negotiate with a body that doesn’t owe you loyalty. "Follows" suggests a relationship, almost a pact - the man leads, the voice consents.

Context sharpens the line. Domingo’s late-career persistence has unfolded alongside shifting expectations about retirement, vocal suitability, and accountability in the #MeToo era. Read there, the quote doubles as a claim to artistic autonomy and a bid to keep authorship over the final act. It works because it’s personal without being sentimental: an old-world operatic ego distilled into a simple condition - when the voice stops, he will too. Until then, he’s not asking permission.