Homage: The Age of the Diva ~ Renee Fleming
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Free Music Notes for Homage: The Age of the Diva ~ Renee Fleming
Free Music Review: Beautiful - lovely singing
Hit: 5 Stars
Opens a whole new world of arias to me....I play it often.Free Music Review: Renee is Renee
Hit: 4 Stars
Being an avid fan and fellow vocal artist I jumped at the chance to pick up Renee's latest. As always I found this recording to be the Renee I know and love. This CD is a pleasant surprise and ironic comparative to Anna Netrebko's future release of her Russian Album. Both albums are very similar in theme as they both prepared rare and lesser known jewels. Though Renee's album doesnt focus on Russian Music there is quite a good selection of Russian rep, again some of which is rarely or never recorded. Even more similar is the aesthetic of the Renee's album cover and booklet. She has truely taken to her theme and transformed herself into a Diva with a capital D. Could there be a little diva action going on between them? *laughs* Who knows...?
As a side note her dramatic weight loss especially in her face does bother me. It seems that Renee has slimmed down to try and compete with the younger and more "beautiful" singers of today. Instead of portraying a young Diva the weight loss makes Renee look older and worn down. Her face seems disfigured and has lost the beautiful structure it had earlier. For an example of this to the extreme look inside the book cover at her second picture next to " A note from Renee" she looks less a diva and more a Victorian/Gothic skeletal apparition. I truly hope she is doing well. My comment to Renee is... "You are beautiful and do not need to change who you are to please the world." Ok back to the review.
Her choices of rep. are very pleasing. Her "Dobra !Ja mu je dam!__ Jak je mi was absolutely thrilling especially in the end with the OVERLY DRAMATIC JAZZ INSPIRED SCOUPED POWERHOUSE NOTE. I actually found myself saying "Oh yeah, sing it [insert word here..you can guess]". My favorite piece I will say was Korngold's "ich ging zu ihm". By the end of the song I had pulled over my car, because the sheer beauty and splendor that is Renee brought me to tears and quivering. I had never heard that piece before and to hear it for the first time from Renee was most wonderful. Her Cleopatre, another piece that was new to me, made me tear up as well. That piece is one that is easily lost to the audience, but Renee, the ever present artist, pulls through with her beautiful long phrases and DRAMATIC ACTING wonderfully. And last of course her Jenufa was and probably will be one of the best roles for her and sent me into a fit of tears and heart wrenched gasping.
Now for some light critism. Her Vissi d'arte was to me a very interesting and odd choice. Her version of the aria was beautiful but I agree with the previous reviewers who said that it was too sweet and that her choice of tempo disrupted the natural silky flow of the piece. Also Her jazz influences to me did not complement this music and made the work seem unprepared. Renee seemed unable to focus herself while performing this song and thus I felt very disconnected from the song and Renee. I will say her acting even at such a slow pace was wonderful. Now...the OVERLY DRAWN OUT NOTE in the end I thought was an intelligent and extremely provoking artistic choice. Renee would be ruined if she sang Tosca on stage but this aria is a splendid choice for her. She just needs to spend more time in preparation so she can really wrap herself around the aria. The only other problem I had is with her aria from Merieille. Yes it was overly ornate and yes it was extremely overdone and dramatic, but i think that style totally fits the music and song. Yet I do not think such a performance best suits Renee's voice. Her voice is much too rich and robust for such things. At one point I had myself thinking "When did Renee become interested in becoming a coloratura." I shouldnt be surprised since she did La Traviata in LA, which I really was facsinated to see. Even so both songs I just criticised were extremely enjoyable especially the Merielle at the end with those screaming high notes. I was like Renee damn again saying to myself "sing it...again insert word here...you can guess." I totally shivered with excitement and I wont lie when after listening to it I found myself repeating it a hundred times and then feeling a little dirty afterwards.
Now I have one more thing to say not about Renee but to opera critics and fans. I find it very concerning of that critics chastise Renee and all other artists. I read people saying that Renee "doesnt portray real women" and "has aweful jazz inflections" and "is too emotionally jarring." Well I have one thing to say.. Art is Art and Renee is Renee. She doesnt portray real women, but isnt the meaning of art to be something artificial. The word art itself comes from artifice. The beauty of her dramatic intrepreation is because it is so unreal that it draws us in and is able to render an experience that is unlike anything else in the world. If her actions were real the same effect would not occurr. People would be turned off and look away. In real life when presented with such problems as presented in opera people become uncomfortable and disconnect to save themselves, which does not allow for such an experience. Second. people blabber about her jazz influences and all that jazz. Well im sorry to say to them "Thats Renee". Renee is an opera singer, but she brings her skills, technique and artistic ambition to the table. Everyone is trying to isolate opera as this one particular art form that consists of this and this and this. That is the recipe for opera's downfall. People are becoming so closed minded and critical about opera that they are not allowing it to evolve and grow. They are stunting its growth and are isolating this unique and splendid art form from truely being appreciated. Its 2006 its time for a change. Renee's unique artistic renderings are possible because of the whole of her experiences not just her time on the operatic stage. With-out her jazz influences and many others Renee wouldnt be Renee. Just as Anna Netrebko was spurrned for doing those light hearted opera music videos. That was opera finding its way in the world and growing and trying out new things. But because of peoples' mind sets about opera, as seen in many of her interviews, they gave Netrebko a image that was filled with disrespect as an professional artist and made her move away from such a path.
People... opera needs to find its own path... a new path to move into the new century. The image of opera and its unique spectacle have wained and it has become a costly and unpopular art. I think the opera community needs to take a big step back and see that its time for change and time to let some things go. Lets try to create art for once instead of imitating it? My final statement. Brava Brava Brava Renee. You truly are The Ameican Soprano.
Free Music Review: A God-given voice - if only she would simply let the voice sing.
Hit: 4 Stars
There really should be no question on the quality of Renee Fleming's voice - it's unequivocally beautiful. It is a glorious cream-and-gold sound, and her technique is formidable.
Why, then, am I frequently not transported or moved when I hear her sing?
The answer lies in HOW Ms Fleming uses her miraculous voice. I feel that her early experience in jazz singing has permanently affected her idea of interpretation - i.e., not subtle. The frequent interspersions of breathiness and sobs simply detract from the beauty of her voice, and the terribly annoying thing for me is that she does not need to do this. Her voice is in itself a beautifully coloured thing, sufficiently expressive in its timbre not to require the ham-and-glam touch. Who can deny the sheer glory of the voice itself? But equally, who can deny that inappropriate and thoughtless bathos is detracting from the perfection that could be hers?
Ms Fleming's German pronunciation is good. Her Italian is not. (In fact, in "Taccea la notte", there's a quite unforgivable space in "notte" which any Italian coach would have forbidden. Why was this not picked up?) The Russian is accented, but that's more understandable than the Italian errors. But above all, I increasingly have the sense that Renee Fleming is not sufficiently master of the meaning of what she is singing to interpret it correctly. She inserts sobs and sighs into the most INAPPROPRIATE words (such as "and", "or", "the", etc.). So in terms of interpretation, I am disappointed... but once again, listening to this recording I am in awe at the sheer natural beauty of the voice itself.
The arias on this recording are all familiar to me - so it's not as though any of them needed "rescuing" from an oblivion of which I was aware. Certainly some of these arias are LESS familiar to some listeners, and I am glad to see that the eclectic collection chosen here will remind listeners today of some of the glorious works that are not often performed now, but which deserve to be.
The more familiar arias on the recording are the most disappointing, perhaps. "Vissi d'arte" has been performed (and is being performed) by singers with exactly the right tonal colour for the role of Tosca, so Ms Fleming's rather self-indulgent version does not add anything, really. But the Rimsky-Korsakoff is lovely, and the Korngold arias are almost perfect (the sob-and-sigh stuff took the edge off my pleasure, but oh, these are glorious arias and absolutely right for Ms Fleming's voice). I am still waiting for Ms Fleming to perform Strauss as she should be performing it - because her voice is a perfect vehicle for Strauss, yet I still feel something missing. Strauss sung in her wonderful voice should make me WEEP with pleasure.
Fans of Renee Fleming will love this recording, and will probably hear no wrong in it. They are right to love the beauty of this immensely gifted woman's voice. They will be more forgiving than I of the swoops and sobs and sighs that really affect my enjoyment of Ms Fleming's singing.
Opera lovers who find Renee Fleming's singing exasperating will probably not be converted by this recording. In terms of self-discipline, it's a continuation along the road of self-indulgence, and not a return to the discipline that made her Schubert Lieder album so marvellously good and her early bel canto singing phenomenally stunning.
Other singers that I can recommend singing this repertoire include: Gabriela Benackova (superb Janacek and Dvorak - I cannot praise this wonderful singer highly enough); Angela Georghiu (is there a better Tosca singing today, or a better Verdi soprano singing today? I doubt it); Karita Mattila (also so very, very good in both Verdi and Janacek); Callas (in my opinion and the opinion of many others, the best Tosca - and an outstanding Leonora); Leontyne Price (perhaps the most ideal Leonora who's ever lived, but get the earlier recordings for preference, when the bloom is well and truly there); Mireille Delunsch (who's doing fantastic things with French and other repertoire); and so on.
To sum up: there is no denying Renee Fleming's superb voice. The breadth of roles she is suited to singing is vast. I am increasingly dissatisfied with Ms Fleming's interpretative approach because it marrs the vocal line and does not add meaning. I will continue to listen to her recordings with the hope that a thoroughly good conductor or accompanist will guide Ms Fleming's interpretation and style.
Gergiev's conducting of the orchestra is superb in this recording, as expected, and the tone colours of the orchestra are magical. But he clearly didn't have enough clout to prevent the indulgent and inappropriately held note in Vissi d'arte, interestingly... It's clear who had the final say musically in this recording.
Free Music Review: Fleming's Elaborate Voice a Compatible Match for Turn-of-the-Last Century Prima Donna Favorites
Hit: 4 Stars
Reigning soprano Renée Fleming's beautifully fulsome voice is put on dramatically effective display in a surprisingly accommodating program that highlights the selections sung by prima donnas at the turn of the last century. Unlike her forays into Handel or even her pop-jazz repertoire, she does not try to harness her sometimes florid mannerisms into a range compatible with her material. If anything, this disc really showcases her technical assuredness in what could have been an elaborate exercise in self-indulgence. With her range amazingly clean and her legato just about perfect, she dives headlong into these relative obscurities that have been chosen to evoke renowned singers from that period.
Among the most thrilling tracks here is Richard Strauss' "Orchesterzwischenspiel" segueing into Fleming's Danae on "Wie umgibst du mich mit Frieden" from "Die Liebe der Danae". She superbly evokes German soprano Lotte Lehmann on "Ich ging zu ihm" from Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Das Wunder der Heliane" and Lehmann's Moravian rival Maria Jeritza on the hyper-dramatic fireworks of "Mamicko, mam tezkou hlavu...Kdo to je?" from Leos Janacek's "Jenufa". She covers more familiar territory with "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's "Tosca" and "Tacea la notte...Di tale amor" from Verdi's "Il trovatore", both benefiting from her accomplished phrasing.
There are moments when I feel she gets a bit coy, for example, her overly ornate approach to the waltz, "Le ciel rayonne, l'oiseau chante...O légère hirondell," from Gounod's "Mireille". However, she rebounds admirably on my two favorite tracks, the moving "J'ai versé le poison dans cette coupe d'or" from Massenet's "Cléopātre" (a tribute to Scottish soprano Mary Garden) and the tragic "Pochudilis mne budto golosa" from Tchaikovsky's early opera success, "Oprichnik". Overall, with fittingly stentorian accompaniment from the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg led by Valery Gergiev, the disc proves Fleming to be at the height of her interpretative powers even if the hodgepodge nature of the material here is jarring at times.
Free Music Review: The voice, YES! The mannerism...
Hit: 4 Stars
I must admit: I've never heard a female voice (except for Leontyne Price) to touch me so profoundly as Renee does. And I've collected her recordings through the years. Her Rusalka is insurpassable. Her Alcina is a monument of sensuality yet purity. Her Thais is glorious. Her 4 Letzte Lieder is THE recording. I mean, oh, my God!
Hearing that Renee is going to record excerpts and hit-like arias such as "Vissi d'arte", "Poveri fiori", "Tacea la notte placida" got me all curious. So I've ordered her new DECCA recital as soon as it became available and played it the moment I got home. And... it didn't struck me. I mean, her rendition of "Poveri fiori" sounds correct, but where's the pathos, the ardour? Maybe she got scared of overinterpreting the character? The Mireille aria sounds, in my humble opinion, too decorative for the luxurious voice of Renee. "Tacea la notte placida" is strangely too slow concerning the energy and the stamina of Valeri Gergiev. It's like Renee saying to him "Maestro, let me show them how I can turn into the Caballe of the new century!". Why? "Vissi d'arte"... maybe the weakest point in the whole album. Almost jazzy. Don't get me wrong, I loved Renee's "jazzistic" approach of Haendel and I think her performance was rapturous. But in Puccini... it just doesn't work. Too "creme brulee"... Too much... sweetness.
On the other hand, the Jenufa, Oprichnik, Servilia arias are just magnificent performances and, for the real Renee Fleming, turn to the first Korngold aria: a lush rain of this incredibly beautiful voice in the best Fleming manner. The good manner, I mean. Overall, a remarkable recital, but still, nothing beats "Beim Schlafengehen" in the Eschenbach/Houston recording. It's just like falling into a dream before actually going to sleep...