Renee Fleming (top 10) My favourite soprano today is Renee Fleming closely followed by Barbara Frittoli. Her career has taken her to all great opera houses around the world I really believe that Renee Fleming’s artistry will be long remembered by many. Born in 1959 she is still going strong. Her repertoire is huge singing Tjech, Russian, German, English, Italian, French, Italian and perhaps others but her main repertoire included works by Strauss, Mozart, Handel, Puccini, Donizetti, Verdi, Bernstein, Rossini, Bellini and Massenet. Besides opera she excels at lieder and is perhaps most famous for her interpretation of Strauss’s four last songs. She also sings oratoria and has performed and recorded Verdi’s requiem. What makes her so very special to me is that she makes every aria original. She takes a piece like the mad scena from Bellini’s Il Pirata, a piece identified with Maria Callas, and turns it into a completely different work, equally beautiful and exciting. The Great Callas has a very different voice from Fleming. It is bigger, darker, more dramatic, how is Fleming ever going to survive a comparison? I have many many sopranos sing this aria including Caballe, Aliberti, Miriciuio, Scotto, Gruberova, Vaness, Millo, Negri, Gheorghiu, Devia Coelho, Lagrange, Plowright, Dragoni, Scotto, Antonacci, de Cavalieri and many more All of these sing it in the “Maria Callas” style and therefor lose. Who wants to listen to an aria performed by a soprano which sounds like Callas on not such a good day, in fact, Callas would sound better than many on not such a good day. Having said that I do like Caballe and Scotto singing this grand scena. A very great singer to me is one who makes you listen to her/him over and over again even when you know the aria inside out and have heard it a zillion times. If the singer can bring something new to an aria and make me forget all the others (of course not Callas) then in my opinion you have discovered something unique. This is what Renee Fleming does to me. Her sensitive intelligent singing gets me every time. Whether it is Strauss, Verdi, Handel or Belcanto she has be spellbound every time. She has been the leading lyrical soprano at the MET for several decades and ha performed with the top including: Sopranos: Nelly Miriciuio, Barbara Bonnie, Natalie Dessay, Kathleen Battle, Maureen O’Flynn Mezzos: Susan Graham, Sophie von Otter, Joyce DiDonato, Cecilia Bartoli, Elina Garaca, Frederica von Stade, Marilyn Horne, Tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Ramon Vargas, Joseph Calleja, Bruce Ford, Lawrence Brownlee Baritons / Basses: Dimitri Hvorostovsky, Thomas Hampson, Renato Bruson, Bryn Terfel, Samuel Ramey Conductors: Levine, Conlon, Pappano, Davis, Abbado, Benda, Gergiev,
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 19:36:57 +0000