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 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.
I don't like to sing loud.
I enjoy the more floaty, exposed, elegant singing.
I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.
It is our responsibility to learn how to speak to an audience that is less informed about music, to give it a reason to want to come and see us instead of going to the movies.