Over the last weekend, the lyric soprano Renée Fleming made her Singapore debut in a recital of song and opera. It was, quite simply, some of the most gorgeous, accomplished singing I had ever heard.

I wasn’t prepared to be so impressed. In early January I caught wind of  Fleming’s concert and proposed to my editor of another publication I write for that we feature her.

At that time my memories of her involved watching a televised concert over Arts Central of her singing Strauss’ Four Last Songs with Christoph Eschenbach conducting at the Proms - a performance that was so involved and beautiful that time had stood still by the last song, in the way that the best performances of the work do.

Though it didn’t eventually work out, I tried to find out all I could about Fleming in preparation for the interview. I listened to her CDs, and bought her book “The Inner Voice” – and came off puzzled.

Yes, the voice was beautiful, with incredibly secure technique, and I could see why Solti had called her double crème, but it didn’t involve me as some other singers with lesser voices. Also, she occasionally she had mannerisms that seemed questionable – her Violetta for example, seemed to be too fussy for the wanton courtesan. A great voice, then, but not for me, like Leontyne Price, who I also often have trouble appreciating. Was my memory of her Four Last Songs merely a trick of time?
 
When she started off somewhat shakily on Saturday with Endless Pleasure from Handel’s Semele, I was ready to leave it at that. Singing to a nearly full house on the second night of her Singapore debut and accompanied by her friend and teacher Harmut Holl, she didn’t seem to engage the many runs with as much agility as she could.

A brief pause. Then, suddenly, with O Sleep, the voice took off. With pronunciation good enough to take dictation from, unbelievable dynamic control (awesome soft middle register singing, a sudden, ravishing diminuendo on a top note), while projecting to the last seat in the house, here was a voice that remained even in all her registers, as full as it was on the CDs, smooth as velvet, but rich like chocolate. Here, then, was Renée Fleming.

Ah, but could she sing Lieder?  We first had a Schubert set, with Erlafsee, Die Maenner sind mechant, Die junge Nonne, Du bist die Ruh’ and Rastlose Liebe. Here, she sang beautifully, but her voice and personality seemed reined back. It was expressive, but without the kind of ease that could be seen in her opera arias, which may had to do with the relative lack of variation in the song selections. Die junge Nonne found some theatrical, evocative accompaniment from Harmut Holl, with Fleming responding in kind. Overall it was attractive singing, but it fell short of touching singers such as Christa Ludwig.

The same could not be said of her Brahms set - including Botschaft, Das Maedchen spricht, Wir wandelten, Meine Liebe ist grun and Von ewiger Liebe – a shorter set that nevertheless allowed Fleming more freedom of expression and communication. In my favourite, Von ewiger Liebe (Of Everlasting Love), Fleming adopted a plaintive quality in her singing that I found particularly moving.  While the Schubert set made me fidgety and restless, the Brahms made me long for more.

Yet this was but a blip in the radar compared with her opera selections. Before the interval, she sang a Song to the Moon (Rusalka) that showed why she was so well-known for it – pure, ringing high notes, full-toned low notes and an expressiveness that can only come from performing the role many times. It left the audience hungry for more, and Fleming was more than ready to oblige. Her Ich soll ihn niemals, from Korngold’s Kathrin, finely and sorrowfully sung, made my heart ache with the protagonist.

Her Caecile, featuring soaring, breathtaking, high notes, provided but a glimpse of why she was so highly regarded in Strauss. What a pity she didn’t sing more, and how wonderfully Strauss wrote for the soprano voice! It was all over too soon, but when Fleming, after re-entering from the wings, started singing O Mio Babbino Caro, an electricity and hush struck the audience. Here was what Fleming was all about!

Gone were all doubts when Fleming sang as she became Lauretta, pleading with her father. No irony in the singing here, it was simply the most beautiful version of the aria I had ever heard. Not swooning, not naïve and girlish, but rather a girl who had just become a woman. It sent tingles of pleasure down my spine. So effortless was her singing that it seemed like a luxurious cushion of sound that one wanted to wrap around oneself.

The crowd erupted into roars of approval, then shushed each other as Fleming prepared to sing Vissi d’arte. I had heard her performance on her recently released album The Art of the Diva with Gergiev, and that was technically accomplished, but live, it was so much more – in turns vulnerable, pleading without being weak. In the highest registers it sepulchral and ethereal, so beautiful and mesmerizing. For the duration of the aria I fell into the spell of Renée Fleming, and time again stood still. And so were the listeners, stunned into silence, before once again exploding into thunderous applause and cries of ‘Brava’, which she generously acknowledged with two encores – Summertime and Somewhere over the Rainbow.

Over all too quickly, it was truly a night to remember.

By Derek Lim

 

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