Renee Fleming: Lyric Soprano Expands to Jazz
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
The Inner Voice” is the name Renée Fleming gave to her
recently published autobiography The Making of
a Singer, but of course it is the outer voice, that gorgeous
lyric soprano, that opera lovers and classical music critics
have called one of the beautiful sounds ever heard. This
May, Fleming fans will have still another reason to marvel
at her inner prompts and outer effects - they may even be “scandalized” she
laughs – when they hear the queen of Mozart and Handel
bopping out jazz on a Decca CD. In fact, as she was performing
Handel’s Rodelinda to sensational reviews at the Met this past fall,
she was also starting to record the jazz album with guitarist
Bill Frisell and pianist and composer Fred Hersch. Though
basically jazz, it will also contain some classical and a
bit of pop – a surprising mix that will include Mahler,
Villa-Lobos, Stephen Foster, Joni Mitchell, and Lionel Hampton,
whose “Midnight Sun,” she recalls, came from
a “crazy idea” she had one night listening to
Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck.” The opera’s
blood red moon passage put her in mind of Hampton’s
fabulous and difficult riff and she asked Hersch if he could “marry
this music to “Midnight Sun.” Jazz even more
than opera has had a hard time in this country, she points
out, and what a shame that is, considering that jazz is America’s
unique art form. Ironically, the CD is scheduled for release
right around the time when Ms. Fleming will be performing
commissioned “art songs” (poems set to classical
music) at Zankel Hall. The pieces, composed by jazz pianist
Brad Mehldau, will all be contemporary classical. Opera traditionalists
are not to worry, however, for the CD sultry songstress will
morph back again that same month into Desdemona when she
performs in “Otello” at the Royal Opera in London.
For
those who know only Renée
Fleming, diva, it may come as a surprise to learn that jazz
has always been her love. She used to perform with a trio
in her early college days at Potsdam State University (she
was a music ed major), but the forthcoming CD, whose working
title is “Haunted Heart,” will be a first for
her in this genre. She’s going for “an intimate
sound,” a whispering, “quiet mellow quality,” and
she’s getting there by singing an octave lower. Her
crossover expertise is indicative of something unusual about
this gifted artist. Renée Fleming is an impassioned
student of music, with the emphasis on “student.” With
a reputation for gracious accessibility and easy affability – both
of which prove true–she works extremely hard to link
talent and discipline. She uses the word “pedantic” to
describe her need to educate herself about an opera she’s
preparing for, including listening to as many different interpretations
by those who have gone before–an unusual and risky
undertaking–but she believes that only by studying
others she will avoid copying them, a danger in singing opera.
As for other perils of a professional
life in singing, she has candidly written about them in The
Inner Voice–a no-frills account of trials
and challenges, private and professional. She wrote the book,
she has said, because such caveats and guidance were not
available when she was a Juilliard student. Few singers realize,
for example, how much a career in singing is business as
much as, maybe more than, pleasure, and how much professionalism
may owe not only to formal study but to trusting intuition
and in being mature enough to deal with pressures. To her
advantage, she believes, was the fact that she got a relatively
late start (she was 29 or 30) and had wonderful mentors–conductors,
especially Solti, other singers, great teachers such as Beverly
Johnson and of course her parents, both of whom taught voice.
In an interview given to OperaNet last month, she
was quoted as having said that when she was young, she was
never really interested in opera, but “it was something
I had to do, like cleaning my room.” She had to take
piano, voice, violin, and dance lessons. Love set in
later.
Because
March is Women’s
History Month, Education Update of course asked about
the word “female” that appears in some of her
many accolades. Though she was given an honorary doctorate
from The Juilliard School a couple of years ago, it was Renée
Fleming “American Beauty” that splashed across
the cover in Opera News that same year. She laughs,
she has two daughters, she hopes she is a role model for
them, as they pursue their dreams, but she points out that
opera is “the least sexist profession in the world.” What
is the genre without a soprano? Or a tenor? Though women
composers have been slow to enter the classical field, she
takes heart that in conducting the stereotype has already
turned around. She is also optimistic about music education
for youngsters, noting that exposure is crucial and that
two decades of decline in the public schools now is being
redressed. Her daughter’s fourth-grade class recently
came to a production of Rodelinda and was “thrilled.” That’s
a tough four hours for many adults but the kids adored it
and there’s where love of music begins.#
