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
In a sense, it's less about seeing how high up I can vault than about seeing how deeply I can explore my potential...Ambition for me is about the willingness to work, the ability to mine my own soul fearlessly.
The reason that some singers go on to become great artists has very little to do with their voices, but rather with the fact that they have used their instruments as tools for detailed communication.
Perfection often creates such a flawless surface that there's no place for the audience to enter into a piece, while the idiosyncrasies of individual style are like windows into the singer's heart.
Being steeped in the process of learning and exploring keeps me from becoming too nervous. Partly it's about not getting bored.
In a way, being an opera singer is like being a very romantic sixteen-year-old who falls in love with great passion and conviction every month.
Music enabled me as a fragile young person to give voice to emotions I could barely name, and how it enables me to give my voice the unique and mysterious power to speak to others.
I'm not a reactionary.
My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.
No voice teacher can be all things to all people. You have to gain information from whatever sources you can. You have to listen.
I want to keep my voice young, with nothing heavy.
Very few opera singers in history have been able to cross into popular music.
I think singing is one of the most natural things that human beings do, but it's difficult.
If I have to hold a note for a long time, I imagine it as moving and spinning, for the note has to have life. In a way, a singer actually refreshes a note with every beat that it's held.
I would love to do more private concerts.