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
Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc.
For a while it was hard for me to say no to work.
For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style.
For years, I had no time for exploratory travel.
Having to travel so much plays havoc with your personal life.
I am so envious of my colleagues from 100 years ago who only sang new works, they hardly ever sang revivals.
I do everything in the third person. Performance is about being someone else.
Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived... I'm still learning all the time.
The first thing I did when I made a little bit of money as a singer was to buy myself an amber necklace. This is often the way we put together our lives, adding the striking qualities of others into our own character.
I think singing it when its done well is extremely natural. It feels great.
I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.
So much can be gained from watching other singers, seeing what they do and what they don't do, seeing how they look when they breathe, how wide they open their mouths for a high note.
An interpretation exists because of what we find between the notes.
I'm reserved, so I've always needed to find a way of opening up. Jazz helped me do that.