Renee Fleming
Renee Fleming
Renée Flemingis an American opera singer and soprano whose repertoire encompasses Richard Strauss, Mozart, Handel, bel canto, lieder, French opera and chansons, jazz and indie rock. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice. She has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also speaks fluent German and French, along with limited Italian. Her signature roles include Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Desdemona...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionOpera Singer
Date of Birth14 February 1959
CountryUnited States of America
My worry is that opera will become an historic art form as opposed to a living, breathing thing.
I was always a very good student.
Well, any time Im preparing for a performance or even a rehearsal, its as if in a way, like any other athletes, these are muscles that support the vocal cords which are just I believe cartilage. It demands a kind of constant warming up and a constant feeling of where is the voice today.
I've always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.
I cannot imagine a more satisfying calling than my own: beauty, humanity, and history every day, combined with the cathartic joy of singing.
I want to get out of the major opera houses.
I think opera has gained a kind of glamorous appeal. It's a live performance that aligns all of the arts, and when it is represented in the media, in film in particular, it is presented as something that is really a special event, whether it's a great date or something that's just hugely romantic.
With classical singing you have to put out so much air - you project, you emit force.
While it's a fact that a voice begins with natural talent, any talent must be nurtured, cajoled, wrestled with pampered, challenged, and, at every turn, examined.
Music was language in our house. It was air.....I feel certain that if I absorbed any lessons at all in the first months and years of my life, they must have been about the work that went into making a beautiful sound.
I have not changed with the accomplishments. I've remained the same. If I had changed, great. You know, but I haven't.
I've lived in New York all my life, and we went to the Mormon Pageant each year in upstate New York. It still is a wonderful production. I remember going and seeing the performance and listening to the music. My father had Mormon Tabernacle Choir music, and we would listen to it and sing with it.
Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year-and those are days you won't be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.
We are unique, each human voice, not because we are completely self-generated, but because of who we choose to assemble the countless factors that made us.