Renee Fleming In Australia

[sydneyboy]

I am delighted that Renee Fleming will be visiting Australia in August for a recital at the Sydney Opera House and performances in Melbourne. She last visited our shores 10 years and her recital on that occasion was one of my fondest memories. I have my ticket already!

[wisconsinguy]

How lucky are you?

I saw Renee a couple of years ago in Chicago with my person from Chicago. Very beautiful, both Renee and my daughter! She sang in concert with a tenor from Germany. Jonas Kaufman. Also, outstanding. My 3rd child is in grad school just outside of Chicago and and a huge fan of hers. Sooo, we are texting back and forth. She tells me she has a ticket for her performance! My heart stopped for a bit. My youngest child of 5, who lives with me, asked me why I was going to Chicago every month. I told him. No problem. The three of us went to dinner and had a beautiful evening together. Have a beautiful nite!

[marylander1940]

[wisconsinguy]

[wisconsinguy]

Thank you Marylander! Beautiful! I have turned into a opera lover in the last couple of years. With the help of another member, has been trying to sort things out like opera, leather, and a few other things! Be aware of the state I come from. The big thing in our lives is who will be the next Miss Dairyland at the state fair!!!

[TruHart1]

How lucky are you?

I saw Renee a couple of years ago in Chicago with my person from Chicago. Very beautiful, both Renee and my daughter! She sang in concert with a tenor from Germany. Jonas Kaufman. Also, outstanding. My 3rd child is in grad school just outside of Chicago and and a huge fan of hers. Sooo, we are texting back and forth. She tells me she has a ticket for her performance! My heart stopped for a bit. My youngest child of 5, who lives with me, asked me why I was going to Chicago every month. I told him. No problem. The three of us went to dinner and had a beautiful evening together. Have a beautiful nite!

 

I just recently obtained a recording of the concert you mention, WG2. I was not able to get to Chicago for it back then but listening to it now, how wonderful that both Ms. Fleming and Herr Kaufmann were in such glorious and phenomenal voice!!! I adore the intelligent nuanced interpretations in conjunction with such exciting talents! The audience was a hoot, too! They were obviously very excited by the vocal fireworks!

 

TruHart1

[whipped guy]

I just recently obtained a recording of the concert you mention, WG2. I was not able to get to Chicago for it back then but listening to it now, how wonderful that both Ms. Fleming and Herr Kaufmann were in such glorious and phenomenal voice!!! I adore the intelligent nuanced interpretations in conjunction with such exciting talents! The audience was a hoot, too! They were obviously very excited by the vocal fireworks!

 

TruHart1

Question... Was this commercially released or is it a "pirate"?? I have been know to collect a few...ah hem... "unauthorized releases" over the years going back to the days of open reel tapes.

 

Once while in college a friend and I were at a performance and at the conclusion we ran up to get closer to the stage... A guy in the front few had a tape recorder and we overheard him saying, "Well, I got that on tape!" MANY years Later I came across a recording of that very performance, made a copy of it, and gave it to my friend as a birthday present. I always wondered if it was the recording made by the individual that we saw... I assumed it was. In any event, I have recordings of a few performances where I was in attendance. It's interesting how at times ones memories are different from reality!

[+ Charlie]

I have been a fan of Miss Fleming since she first appeared on the scene in the early 1990s. The first time I heard her live was at a concert in Carnegie Hall twenty-0ne years ago in honor of Marilyn Horne. Instead of an opera aria, she sang a song by John Kander (a boyfriend of mine when I was very young), that I thought was gorgeous. The voice was so clear and fresh that I felt certain she was going to be a star, but I didn't realize how big. Recently I saw her in concert here in California with Susan Graham, and the voice is now much more mature and lush; I know that some critics feel it is almost too (p)lush, but I still love to listen to it.

[whipped guy]

When one thinks of the depth and breath of Fleming's repertory it is quite impressive... Richard Strauss to Rossini... and the title role in his Armida one of the most florid roles ever written... and just about everything in between including Mozart and Dvorak... It totally boggles the mind! Yes the voice is overly plush... and she has some strange mannerisms that give things a somewhat scat-like jazzy feeling... But heck! Other singers have had similar idiosyncrasies... the Sutherland droop comes to mind as being close in feeling... and many others had idiosyncratic habits were much much worse in nature... such as overuse of the glottal attack for no apparent reason... and aspirated articulation of fast passages that bordered on yodeling. Either one likes and/or tolerates such things or they move on. That Fleming has had a long and successful career says it all.

 

PS: I first heard her at the MET in Così fan Tutte... I did not know who she was at the time... I only noticed it after looking through some old programs years later.

[+ sync]

Yes the voice is overly plush... and she has some strange mannerisms that give things a somewhat scat-like jazzy feeling...

 

I wish I had such an acute musical ear as you have. Renee Fleming was a jazz singer prior to her opera career.

 

[whipped guy]

Well in jazz the performer has the opportunity to play with the vocal line... one will sing the opening of a song more or less straight as written and then can embellish it according to their desires... The fancy and the imagination of the performer often can know no bounds. Such was the situation in opera up until about the middle of the 19th Century. In fact embellishing the vocal probably hit its peak in the Bel Canto era which ended about that point in time. I often thought that when performing such operas that Fleming often took a somewhat different approach to embellishments. They were always in the proper style for the composer in question, but the way at she executed them was often a bit on the jazzy side... It can be heard in her performance of Rossini's Armida referenced above where she tended to coo and croon a bit. Not excessively so, but it's definitely there. I'm not sure this would have been done in 1817 when the piece was first performed, but who knows...

 

At times Fleming even performs other composers music in such a style...composers such as Verdi and Richard Strauss whose music is to be performed more or less as written, and this has annoyed some listeners. As I noted above, singers have had worse habits over the years... and the style definitely suits the plush and rich quality of her voice... Moreover, this is the 21st Century and we are listening with different ears and have experienced different styles of music than would have been the case 200 or how ever many years ago.

[TruHart1]

Question... Was this commercially released or is it a "pirate"?? I have been know to collect a few...ah hem... "unauthorized releases" over the years going back to the days of open reel tapes.

 

Once while in college a friend and I were at a performance and at the conclusion we ran up to get closer to the stage... A guy in the front few had a tape recorder and we overheard him saying, "Well, I got that on tape!" MANY years Later I came across a recording of that very performance, made a copy of it, and gave it to my friend as a birthday present. I always wondered if it was the recording made by the individual that we saw... I assumed it was. In any event, I have recordings of a few performances where I was in attendance. It's interesting how at times ones memories are different from reality!

 

WG, the recording is a "private" transcription of the concert, labeled "in-house" which translates to being recorded from the audience. I had heard from both WG2 and RGM how excellent both singers were that night so I was delighted that this recording was shared with me! Add to the fact that Kaufmann is my absolute favorite tenor and Fleming has given me some major thrills with her interpretations of the rarely performed Rodelinda of Handel and Thais of Massenet (including some amazing high 'D's at the end of her 2nd act aria -- I have all the Sirius Met b'casts and a number of "private" recordings, both b'casts and in-house recordings she made in Europe as she performed concert versions and productions prior to her Met performances, and the soprano was consistently in top form in this opera for the 2 to 3 years she was performing it!) We are so lucky to be in a time when technically fine recordings of operatic performances are available for both these artists for almost their entire careers through present day!

 

A note about Massenet's opera Thais, as concerns my personal love of the piece: I was raised fundamentalist Christian and remained quite closeted through my teen and early youth years. When I was about 9 or 10, I went (as a school field trip) to a local orchestra concert which featured local student winners, especially a young (probably 17 or 18) violinist. She was featured in 2 performances with the orchestra, first, excerpts from the Peer Gynt suite by Grieg, in which she played 'Anitra's Dance' and the orchestra played 'From the Hall of the Mountain King', both so memorable to me that I still love all of Grieg's Peer Gynt music available on recordings. The other piece she played was the 'Meditation' from Thais which I thought had to be the most beautiful music I had ever heard in my life up to that time!

 

This pre-dated my interest in opera by about 3 years or so but I eventually found out that the Meditation was meant to depict a long sleepless night and dramatically show how a famous Courtesan in ancient Alexandra, Egypt decided to denounce her "sinful" profession and dedicate herself completely to God because of the preaching of Athanael, a priest from the nearby desert who is set on converting this most famous sinner. The story takes a very ironic twist in that Thais becomes a completely devoted Christian who dies from putting herself through a long and physically exhausting trek to a group of Christian sisters in the desert, while the priest who was the cause of her conversion falls completely physically in love with her. The final scene depicts him holding her as she dies in a holy and transcendent state (seeing visions of being accepted into a beautiful heaven) while he repeatedly confesses his undying love to her, to the point of causing his own spiritual eternal damnation.

 

Just another reason for my young, Christian-confused being to love the opera Thais before I ever heard any of it beside the Meditation. Over the years I listened to old recordings of the opera and loved all the music but until Fleming "became" the role (with a very exciting Thomas Hampson, as the priest Athanael) the opera never seemed to quite be fully what my original impression of that performance of the Meditation made me imagine, until Fleming WAS exactly what I had always felt, no, KNOWN, the role to be. Maybe it is personally a bit ironic that the priest falls in love with a courtesan when I consider how much I enjoy so many wonderful courtesans myself at this stage of my life?!

 

Fleming and Kaufmann, unbeatable!

 

TruHart1

[+ Charlie]

One of the few LPs I have saved is Beverly Sills' recording of Thais, not because I was particularly impressed by her performance (I wasn't), but because Sills signed it for me. I guess that marks me as a superficial celebrity fan.

[whipped guy]

One of the few LPs I have saved is Beverly Sills' recording of Thais, not because I was particularly impressed by her performance (I wasn't), but because Sills signed it for me. I guess that marks me as a superficial celebrity fan.

Not to mention shallow... and to think I referenced you as being sophisticated and urbane on more than one occasion!

 

However, all kidding aside I have never cared for Sills in the role, nor the sound quality of that particular recording either... So you are hereby absolved of any superficiality.

[whipped guy]

Tru... It's good to know that I am not the only "collector" out there.

 

Incidentally, I mentioned such performances to an acquaintance who is a patent lawyer. He is also and amateur musician and tenor. He is totally into Juan Diego Florez. I mentioned that I had a number of his live performances and that I was willing to share. They were all broadcasts and in the public domain... and I was not selling them... but he got quite contentious as I guess any good lawyer would so I never brought up the subject ever again. The gods only know what he would have done if I told him that I had things that were recorded from the audience... Insert GASP here!

[+ WilliamM]

 

I have had a great good luck to see both Renee Fleming and Ella Fitzgerald perform many times: Renee in opera, Ella in jazz concerts. Here is Ella singing the same Duke Ellington song, prefaced by saying she loves all kinds of music, and then sings a bit of opera.

 

It's not meant as being critical of Renee Fleming, rather to celebrate both singers.

[TruHart1]

One of the few LPs I have saved is Beverly Sills' recording of Thais, not because I was particularly impressed by her performance (I wasn't), but because Sills signed it for me. I guess that marks me as a superficial celebrity fan.

 

I think a signed recording by the great Bubbles Silverman is something to be treasured, so I understand the celebrity crush, Charlie. Listening to that recording however, not among my favorite recordings of Thais. The 1978 Thais performances at the Met, with Sills and Sherrill Milnes were even more disappointing, but by then Sills was well past her prime and Milnes did not seem too invested in the part. Earlier Sills (before her first major cancer scare) could be amazing, especially in Bel Canto and Baroque pieces. I still listen to and find her live concert performance of Handel's secular cantata Semele from 1967 with the Cleveland Orchestra amazing, and she was so ill with a cold that she had canceled the first performance the night before this performance. I enjoyed her Tudor Trilogy about eight years later at NYCO but the voice was already beginning to lose some of its luster. Her acting in these roles however, (all available on video at one time) was flawless! A (p)lush voice, such as Fleming's though, was never really a part of her vocal arsenal, IMHO.

 

TruHart1

[+ Charlie]

Sills was wonderful in the early years, i.e., at the NYCO in the 1960s, where I saw her many times, but by the time she crossed the plaza to the Met, her voice was already fraying, alas!

[whipped guy]

Being a Bel Canto fan Sills high water mark was the live 1969 bastardized version of Rossini's L'Assedio di Corinto from La Scala. It is available on a decent sounding Opera D'Oro release. However, for every note that Rossini wrote she sang ten that were not in the score. She completely rewrote the part to fit her voice... Not Rossini at all. But great singing.... Prior to that was the equally bastardized version of Handel's Giulio Cesare. The voice was never plush... but it was sweet. again great singing... but not really what Handel composed.

 

Her first big commercial release as a star was Donizetti's Roberto Devereux released after the above mentioned Scala performances. Even at that time the voice was frayed and wobbly... It went all down hill after that... She had a good marketing plan backing her up... but I never totally bought into it... I do like her Donizetti Tudor Trilogy... but the voice is really too light and for all her dramatic abilities the voice was never substantial enough to to carry the full weight of the drama... Her Lucia was more successful, but like all she did it was WAY over-embellished. At times less is more, but she never understood that...

 

So Charlie and Tru are correct... search out 1960's Sills... That's the real deal!!!

[sydneyboy]

Thank you for your wonderful contributions. As I said it is 10 years since I have heard Ms Fleming and her return is a treat. I envy WisconsinGuy having heard Jonas Kaufman and Ms Fleming in the same concert. The Kaufman concert was the highlight of the Sydney opera season last year and to hear the two together would be an affair to remember.

[sydneyboy]

TruhartI mentioned Sherrill Milnes which brought back a wonderful memory. In the late 1970's Opera Australia induced him to come Australia (which he admitted was because of his artistic collaboration with Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge) in Thomas' ''Hamlet'' in Sydney which was extraordinary. He was truly in his prime.

[+ WilliamM]

sydneyboy, Perhaps you can help with a puzzle:

 

Before my first trip to Australia (in 1994), I stopped in Christchurch, NZ and bought a CD of Kiri Te Kanawa's fanous outdoor concerts in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch earlier in the 1990s. I have greatly enjoyed the CD. But, it seems to be available only in New Zealand. I have never found the CD in Sydney, Melboune or the United States/London. There are several DVDs that contain bits of the NZ concerts, but are not comparable to the CD.

 

Yes, I can make copies of my CD, just wonder of you have any information.

[sydneyboy]

William I am sorry but I can't help with the one.

[+ Gar1eth]

Thank you Marylander! Beautiful! I have turned into a opera lover in the last couple of years. With the help of another member, has been trying to sort things out like opera, leather, and a few other things! Be aware of the state I come from. The big thing in our lives is who will be the next Miss Dairyland at the state fair!!!

 

Don't forget Cows On The Concourse!!! It's coming up soon!!

 

http://www.cowsontheconcourse.org/

 

Gman

[sydneyboy]

A brief note to say that last night I attended the Renee Fleming recital in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. All that needs to be said is that it fulfilled its every promise. A very balanced program with an introduction to every item by Ms Fleming. She came across as natural and very charming and judging by the standing ovation by the 2,700 present in the sold out hall I was not the only one who thought so.