I was 13, I didn’t like opera, ew. I liked cheerleading and boys. That was what I was interested in, and Barbra Streisand, The Beatles and Bob Dylan. But I loved singing. I loved it. And I did have a very good coloratura. I listened to my high school Music Man just as I was getting ready to get the Kennedy Center Honors with Barbara Cook, because I had been to see her when I was a kid in The Music Man on Broadway. And I had sung the part in my high school production and it’s very good, but it’s a voice I don’t have anymore. It was very high and light and free.
— Meryl Streep on studying opera as a teenager
