Everyone Loves Renée
This article originally appeared in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, on April 3, 2004.
by Colin Eatock
Backstage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Renée Fleming emerges from her dressing room, well coifed and wrapped in fur, to greet a clutch of fans. Not half an hour before, she was dying of consumption on stage, but now there’s no hint of her exertions as she calmly chats with Japanese businessmen, New York opera queens and aspiring young singers. At 45, America’s reigning diva manages to be both elegant and unpretentious as she shakes hands, signs autographs and graciously wishes her well-wishers well.
Can she walk down the street in New York without being recognized everywhere she goes? She smiles and waves the question away with her hand: “I’m oblivious to that kind of thing. I don’t really notice, unless I’m somewhere like the opera section of Tower Records, and someone comes up to me and asks, ‘Are you Renée Fleming?’”
Earlier that evening, this scene of adoration played out on a much larger scale in the Met’s lobby. After her astonishing Act I performance as Violetta in La Traviata, patrons huddled in small groups to talk – not about their jobs or families or their last trip to Europe, but about what they’d just heard. “A lot of singers call themselves coloraturas, but she’s the real thing!” enthused a white-haired man to his friends. “She is incredible!” exclaimed a middle-aged woman in Italian-accented English. And at the end of the night, the packed house resounded with cries of “Brava!” as a confetti of ripped-up programs rained down from the balcony on her final curtain-call.
Many commentators have tried to put their critical fingers on what makes Fleming so popular. (Toronto audiences will have the chance to decide for themselves on Sunday afternoon when she appears at Roy Thomson Hall.) To some it is her sincerity. “She establishes an intimacy with the audience that cannot be faked,” praised Charles Michener of the New Yorker. To others it’s a matter of shrewd calculation. “She understands the country’s values,” remarked Peter Conrad of London’s Observer, describing her rapport with the American public: “the need to balance pleasure and profit, self-expression and the ambitious manoeuvrings of a career.”
In Fleming’s own opinion, it is her vocal attributes, first and foremost, that have made her the star she is today. “I think my voice is innately accessible,” she suggests. “It’s not the kind of voice that only opera fans can love.”
It’s hard to argue with that: words like “plush” and “sumptuous” are often used to describe her voice – and its accessibility has allowed Fleming to break through the barriers that often separate opera and classical music from mainstream culture. She’s sought out by writers from People, Time and USA Today. And television appearances, such as her spot on David Letterman’s Late Show in October to promote her latest CD, "Renée Fleming By Request," have brought her into millions of North American living-rooms. Three years ago she was chosen to sing at the memorial ceremony for the victims of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. And the producers of The Lord of the Rings movies hired Fleming when they wanted to record Elvish songs for the soundtrack of The Return of the King.
Some of the honours bestowed on Fleming recall bygone days when opera singers were cultural icons. Manhattan’s swanky Daniel restaurant created “La Diva Renée,” a pastry desert with nuts, chocolate and cream – a gesture that connects Fleming with Nellie Melba, of Peach Melba fame, and Luisa Tetrazzini, whose name graces chicken casseroles the world over. In May, the Renée Fleming Iris, new strain of the flower, will be unveiled at a horticultural show in Japan. And when the writer Anne Patchett wanted to create a fictional opera singer for her 2002 novel Bel Canto, she modeled her character on America’s favourite soprano. “Anne didn’t know me – she hadn’t even met me,” laughs Fleming. “She and I have become good friends since then.” These days, it seems that everyone loves Renée Fleming.
Well, almost everyone. Six years ago she was booed at La Scala, when Milanese audiences didn’t like her performance in Lucrezia Borgia. And of late some New York critics have taken a jaundiced view of her. In December, Times critic Anne Midgette called her “one of the most overrated figures that has come out this year.” Asserted Midgette: “What she does is a little superficial, and that’s the level on which some people are extolling her.” Peter Davis of New York magazine fairly trashed her Violetta at the Met, and raged against her “affected ‘glamour’ press photos for her Rolex ads and new record covers.” He speculated that she “aims to transform herself into some kind of crossover version of Madonna.”
Yet as a crossover artist she’s succeeding where many others have not, embracing different kinds of music without resorting to campy displays like Pavarotti singing with the rock star Sting. Fleming came by her eclectic tastes honestly: growing up just outside Rochester, New York, she performed in high-school productions of Broadway musicals, learning show-tunes that she still sings. In her college years she fronted a jazz band – and today she maintains a respected position in that genre, appearing with such jazz greats as Wynton Marsallis and Illinois Jacquet.
Rochester is also the home of the Eastman School of Music, one of the foremost classical-music conservatories in the USA. Fleming started early, attending Eastman’s Children’s School, and later she earned a master’s degree there. Completing her studies in 1987, she paid her dues in the opera world, slogging from one small company to another, appearing in Norfolk, Shreveport and Omaha. In 1988 she had her “big break,” in Houston as 1988, as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. Debuts at the Met and London’s Covent Garden soon followed.
For all her diverse musical experiences, Fleming strives to avoid the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all approach to singing. “My voice is pretty much secure – it isn’t getting higher, or lighter, or darker,” she says. “I now find myself pretty much 100 percent involved in style, period, language and drama. The line is fine, there’s no question about it. Some people find that I bring too much jazz to Handel! It’s my job to pay attention to style – I’m exploring different styles and genres.”
And if her some of her explorations are leading her away from the traditional life of an opera singer, that’s just fine with her. “I’ve sung a lot of opera,” she says with a touch of weariness in her voice. “There were years when I was gone for 10 months.” The breakup of her marriage to actor Rick Ross in 1998 cast her in a new role – single mom – and for a time she contemplated giving up performing. Now, she prefers to limit her opera engagements, singing more concerts and spending as much time as she can at home in New York.
“I’m the mother of two children,” she explains, “and there’s not enough time.”
© Copyright Colin Eatock 2004
by Colin Eatock
Backstage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Renée Fleming emerges from her dressing room, well coifed and wrapped in fur, to greet a clutch of fans. Not half an hour before, she was dying of consumption on stage, but now there’s no hint of her exertions as she calmly chats with Japanese businessmen, New York opera queens and aspiring young singers. At 45, America’s reigning diva manages to be both elegant and unpretentious as she shakes hands, signs autographs and graciously wishes her well-wishers well.
Can she walk down the street in New York without being recognized everywhere she goes? She smiles and waves the question away with her hand: “I’m oblivious to that kind of thing. I don’t really notice, unless I’m somewhere like the opera section of Tower Records, and someone comes up to me and asks, ‘Are you Renée Fleming?’”
Earlier that evening, this scene of adoration played out on a much larger scale in the Met’s lobby. After her astonishing Act I performance as Violetta in La Traviata, patrons huddled in small groups to talk – not about their jobs or families or their last trip to Europe, but about what they’d just heard. “A lot of singers call themselves coloraturas, but she’s the real thing!” enthused a white-haired man to his friends. “She is incredible!” exclaimed a middle-aged woman in Italian-accented English. And at the end of the night, the packed house resounded with cries of “Brava!” as a confetti of ripped-up programs rained down from the balcony on her final curtain-call.
Many commentators have tried to put their critical fingers on what makes Fleming so popular. (Toronto audiences will have the chance to decide for themselves on Sunday afternoon when she appears at Roy Thomson Hall.) To some it is her sincerity. “She establishes an intimacy with the audience that cannot be faked,” praised Charles Michener of the New Yorker. To others it’s a matter of shrewd calculation. “She understands the country’s values,” remarked Peter Conrad of London’s Observer, describing her rapport with the American public: “the need to balance pleasure and profit, self-expression and the ambitious manoeuvrings of a career.”
In Fleming’s own opinion, it is her vocal attributes, first and foremost, that have made her the star she is today. “I think my voice is innately accessible,” she suggests. “It’s not the kind of voice that only opera fans can love.”
It’s hard to argue with that: words like “plush” and “sumptuous” are often used to describe her voice – and its accessibility has allowed Fleming to break through the barriers that often separate opera and classical music from mainstream culture. She’s sought out by writers from People, Time and USA Today. And television appearances, such as her spot on David Letterman’s Late Show in October to promote her latest CD, "Renée Fleming By Request," have brought her into millions of North American living-rooms. Three years ago she was chosen to sing at the memorial ceremony for the victims of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. And the producers of The Lord of the Rings movies hired Fleming when they wanted to record Elvish songs for the soundtrack of The Return of the King.
Some of the honours bestowed on Fleming recall bygone days when opera singers were cultural icons. Manhattan’s swanky Daniel restaurant created “La Diva Renée,” a pastry desert with nuts, chocolate and cream – a gesture that connects Fleming with Nellie Melba, of Peach Melba fame, and Luisa Tetrazzini, whose name graces chicken casseroles the world over. In May, the Renée Fleming Iris, new strain of the flower, will be unveiled at a horticultural show in Japan. And when the writer Anne Patchett wanted to create a fictional opera singer for her 2002 novel Bel Canto, she modeled her character on America’s favourite soprano. “Anne didn’t know me – she hadn’t even met me,” laughs Fleming. “She and I have become good friends since then.” These days, it seems that everyone loves Renée Fleming.
Well, almost everyone. Six years ago she was booed at La Scala, when Milanese audiences didn’t like her performance in Lucrezia Borgia. And of late some New York critics have taken a jaundiced view of her. In December, Times critic Anne Midgette called her “one of the most overrated figures that has come out this year.” Asserted Midgette: “What she does is a little superficial, and that’s the level on which some people are extolling her.” Peter Davis of New York magazine fairly trashed her Violetta at the Met, and raged against her “affected ‘glamour’ press photos for her Rolex ads and new record covers.” He speculated that she “aims to transform herself into some kind of crossover version of Madonna.”
Yet as a crossover artist she’s succeeding where many others have not, embracing different kinds of music without resorting to campy displays like Pavarotti singing with the rock star Sting. Fleming came by her eclectic tastes honestly: growing up just outside Rochester, New York, she performed in high-school productions of Broadway musicals, learning show-tunes that she still sings. In her college years she fronted a jazz band – and today she maintains a respected position in that genre, appearing with such jazz greats as Wynton Marsallis and Illinois Jacquet.
Rochester is also the home of the Eastman School of Music, one of the foremost classical-music conservatories in the USA. Fleming started early, attending Eastman’s Children’s School, and later she earned a master’s degree there. Completing her studies in 1987, she paid her dues in the opera world, slogging from one small company to another, appearing in Norfolk, Shreveport and Omaha. In 1988 she had her “big break,” in Houston as 1988, as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. Debuts at the Met and London’s Covent Garden soon followed.
For all her diverse musical experiences, Fleming strives to avoid the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all approach to singing. “My voice is pretty much secure – it isn’t getting higher, or lighter, or darker,” she says. “I now find myself pretty much 100 percent involved in style, period, language and drama. The line is fine, there’s no question about it. Some people find that I bring too much jazz to Handel! It’s my job to pay attention to style – I’m exploring different styles and genres.”
And if her some of her explorations are leading her away from the traditional life of an opera singer, that’s just fine with her. “I’ve sung a lot of opera,” she says with a touch of weariness in her voice. “There were years when I was gone for 10 months.” The breakup of her marriage to actor Rick Ross in 1998 cast her in a new role – single mom – and for a time she contemplated giving up performing. Now, she prefers to limit her opera engagements, singing more concerts and spending as much time as she can at home in New York.
“I’m the mother of two children,” she explains, “and there’s not enough time.”
© Copyright Colin Eatock 2004
