Mike Read: Freddie, with Montserrat Caballé, you had a great success there, one always got the feeling that although you’re enjoying it, and you obviously like opera, that you’re also having a wonderful laugh inside as you’re doing it and thinking ‘this is outrageous but I’m enjoying every moment of it’
Freddie: Ha, ha, ha, quite true actually. It’s like a tidal wave. It was, it’s quite ridiculous wasn’t it, actually at that point I wanted to do something totally different, and I think it all sort of, it snowballed, really, because I didn’t think that she was going to accept my sort of offer, as it were, and to cut a long story short, at first I actually thought it was only going to be the one track, but she said let’s make an album, and I thought my God, what am I going to do now? And so I was sort of stuck and I thought, you know, you just don’t turn the super diva down, you know, so in one way I think it was good, because I didn’t have that much time to think about it. It was such a different thing for me to do, and I’m glad I did it, because I mean it’s, sort of, very nerve wracking, totally different, totally un-rock ‘n’ roll, and, and something that really required a lot of discipline, but I’m glad it’s over actually, and don’t ask me if I’m gonna do another, another opera album, because I’m not !
Interview with Mike Read, May 1989
