OperaNet: Interviews
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OperaNet: Interviews
Renee Fleming: InterviewBy Joel Kasow Renée Fleming is one of the hottest new stars to
arrive on the international circuit in recent years. In the wake of three
recordings made under that most perilous of circumstances, during live
performance, an ordeal from which she emerges triumphantly. And in roles
which are far from easy, she shows that she can cope with the most
elaborate Rossinian fioratura in the complete recording of Armida, that
she is mistress of an exemplary Mozartian style in Sir Georg Solti's new
version of Cosi fan Tutte (Decca 444 174-2) and that she is not afraid of
the stylistic perils of 19th century opera in an otherwise unsatisfactory
version of
Massenet's Hérodiade.
A new recording of Mozart opera arias is made essential listening with
a wide-ranging choice from among the lesser-known works. The
collaboration of Sir Charles Mackerras is noteworthy except for an
uncomfortably fast "Ach, ich fühls". Otherwise, Fleming
is in exceptional form, in music which she herself says she wanted to
record while her voice was still able to cope with the high tessitura,
and high it is (Decca 452 602-2). OperaNet spoke to her last spring
when she was in Paris singing Donna Anna for the reopening of
the Palais
Garnier and
Marguérite at the Bastille. We were looking forward to her first Thaïs at
the Nice Opera in February, which the soprano cancelled (wicked tongues
not hesitating to say that Decca's decision not to record the piece was
the major reason for Fleming's defection). | |
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Operanet: How and where did you start
singing? |
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How do you feel about recording - do you prefer live or studio? Fleming: Until recently, I'd only done live and you go out there thinking you've got to do your best tonight and hope they come up with something that isn't embarrassing. In the studio I did the Lulu and Wozzeck Suites with Levine two years ago which was just released and my first Mozart recording with Mackerras, all opera arias but one, but all unusual repertoire, and high... Operanet: Mitridate, Lucio Silla... Fleming: High, but not that high. Konstanze, and some even earlier music. Operanet: One of the things that's been irritating me recently is that many singers don't take the trouble to enunciate - not a problem as far as you're concerned - to what do you attribute this? Fleming: It goes back to my good education, for one thing. I studied in Frankfurt for a year, and one of the greatest aspects of that training was going to the opera three nights a week on a student pass, and I developed my own taste from that experience. I hadn't seen a lot of opera before that. One of the things I discovered is that a beautiful sound, no matter how well produced, without expression and without a sense of text, of meaning, of words, became very dull to me after about ten or fifteen minutes. I always ask people their opinions, and also people who aren't in the business, and I found in France they're less concerned with correct pronunciation than they are with being able to understand what you're singing. The only coaches I ever work with any more are diction coaches. I believe very strongly in getting the text out.I do think sopranos get a bad rap, in that above the staff it is almost impossible to be understood. Men generally sing where they speak and sopranos do not; I try very hard to be clear but it's virtually impossible. A lot of Marguerite is very low. Operanet: Will your repertoire be changing in the near future, where are you heading, are you leaving some roles behind? Fleming: I'm doing a lot of French repertoire in the next five years which I really love: Thais, Manon, Louise... Operanet: Where will you do Louise? Fleming: San Francisco. I hope it will get around a bit. I know that repertoire's not very popular here but it hasn't been done here in so long that I'm sort of hoping that within the next ten years there'll be a resurgence of French opera. Because it isn't done often, you hope it will be done well. Operanet: How do you feel about some of the modern productions making the rounds? Fleming: I was in Frankfurt, studying, in 1984 and 1985, when Gielen was there, so I saw every wild production there was - and that was another part of my education in those days - I loved the ones that made sense, that had something that was grounded, that was thoroughly thought out. And then there were the others that looked like someone had had a bad dream one night and decided to put it on stage: those I found really dull, they didn't hold my attention. Operanet: How did you feel folding the laundry in the Garden Scene in Lavelli's Faust? Fleming: I know people really hate that, but I find the production interesting because despite it's 23 years it still looks like something that could be produced today. I assumed Lavelli wasn't even alive anymore, that he was in mid-career when he had done it, so that when he showed up at rehearsal looking like a relatively young man I was just stunned. He must have been a kid when he did this. I love the way the show looks. I had about a week of rehearsal because I was singing Don Giovanni and got to the Faust rehearsals after they had started, but I had just sung the opera in Chicago. Operanet: Where do you see your career heading over the next five or ten years? Fleming: In addition to the French repertoire, I'm going to do Arabella, staying with Strauss, because that's really gorgeous music. I see my repertoire with Mozart and Strauss as the core, with the French and bel canto on the one hand - the higher things - because I want to keep my voice young, with nothing heavy for the next five years, and then on the other side some of the unusual repertoire, a couple of the Verdi roles, I love the Czech repertoire, I love Janacek, Russalka is probably my favorite role. It's a broad repertoire, but not that broad vocally. Operanet: How many roles do you have in your repertoire at the moment? Fleming: I never counted; I should. Operanet: Do you have any Wagnerian plans? Fleming: Bayreuth this summer and next. Eva in Meistersinger. It's the role I can do now and when the opportunity came up I thought this may be my only chance to ever sing in Bayreuth. Having studied in Germany, I speak the language fluently. This is the one chance I can take and be happy with because it's a beautiful part. It's quite lyric. We'll see how it goes before I think about Elisabeth or Elsa. Everyone knows it's a great acoustic in a wonderful theater. I'm also thrilled about working with Daniel Barenboim again. You asked earlier about conductors: Solti has been so key in my career. The Cosi that I jumped into with him got me my relationship with Decca, my relationship with him. That's the best part about this career - working with people on that level. It's so inspiring. That's what we all dream about when we're in school. He called me after the Giovanni to talk about Eva, because he'd heard about Bayreuth, to give me some tips. He said, "You can always call me for advice." That's the kind of relationship we dream about having with conductors, people who care. The conversation turns to Eleanor Steber with whom Renée Fleming tells me she had one lesson, and then the problems of lessons with the great ladies. Fleming: Perhaps you're better able to learn when you're older. At the end of a week-long class with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf all I could do was cry for an hour because I was so emotionally drained - one day I would be gold and the next would be awful. It was so difficult for somebody that young to take on. It was overwhelming working with her. Interpretatively it was phenomenal, it was the vocal side of things that was hard. I had studied for a year with Hartmut Höll - whose wife is a protege of hers - so that I was learning how to dig for the interpretation. At the time it was very hard, but in retrospect it was phenomenal. Operanet: Do you do much in the way of recitals or are you concentrating on opera? Fleming: All I studied that year in Germany was lieder. I didn't do any opera at all. In fact, I wasn't even accepted into the opera department because they said it wasn't worthwhile for only a year. I think the truth was that I was studying with Arleen Augèr. She was a wonderful teacher. I'm going to do lots of recitals in the future. I have seven in the next six months. I'll be touring with Helen York, a British pianist who was Hartmut's protegé that year and is now at Westminster Choir College. However, Christoph Eschenbach and I are making a Schubert recording, so we'll be doing a few concerts at Salzburg and other places. Operanet: Will you be doing some of the lesser heard songs? Fleming: The disc will be more the "Greatest Hits", but you know, for the ten years since I've been living in New York, I don't think I've ever heard the "greatest hits" on a program, of any composer, in recital. You hear them in recordings, but in concert people are more interested in unearthing unusual repertoire. No one ever sings "Gretchen am Spinnrade" or "Die junge Nonne" in recital, in my experience. |
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Joel Kasow is the Operanet editor at Culturekiosque.com
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