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
Renee Fleming quotes about
Because everything about the voice interests me, I felt it would be fascinating to learn a completely different style of singing.
Contrary to the norm, as my technique improved my voice became higher.
Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc.
For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style.
I have not changed with the accomplishments. I've remained the same. If I had changed, great. You know, but I haven't.
A lot of performers don't want to leave the circuit, the European opera house circuit, partly because most singers don't sing many concerts, or at least not while they are in their prime.
I'm not exactly an angry young person.
I listen to archival and historic recordings. I love watching singers. I learned a lot from watching videos.
I do everything in the third person. Performance is about being someone else.
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.
I want to get out of the major opera houses.
We sing with the entire body. The sounds that we make emanate not just from the head, but from the whole heart and soul, and, most important, the gut.
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.
I'm reserved, so I've always needed to find a way of opening up. Jazz helped me do that.