Whatever Happened to the Beautiful Voice?
“I sang Violetta that year, too! Tony Tommasini said it was the best thing I ever did! They never even broadcast it in the United States! They were too busy giving a big build-up to that crap you were turning out.” Video
I love Renee, esp. her Rosmonda, Armida and Thais. But this is just TOO funny!
OK, I realize I have been off this glorious board for some months, but Bella Figlia dell’Amore’s comment that Fleming’s “defenders” never defend her on “the MERITS” of her singing has pushed me over the proverbial edge and back into harm’s way of posting again! Yet before I address the Fleming issue, I will address my absence.
First, for those of you who figured out my e-mail address and e-mailed me during a recent time of family difficulty, I am most grateful.
Second, for another group of you who somehow figured out my precise identity (likely from my being reasonably forthcoming about specific stage appearances in the past…), I will admit that you did scare me off — for a time — from posting, feeling that you were somehow going to print off all my postings and plaster them all over Lincoln Center, Place de la Bastille, or der Opernring next time I appear at those specific houses. But recently, seeing as how that never happened, I have decided that you probably don’t give a crap WHO says WHAT, and besides — what I post is the truth, and I have nothing to hide.
Third, I will also admit that the flurry of activity just before I slunk back underground — concerning “Who is the Interpolator?”, etc. — made me feel a bit hunted and cornered. I had lurked around and read this board with great interest for a long time, refraining from posting for that *very* reason: that my identity as a singer would be immediately discovered somehow just from the things I write.
It’s likely that 99.9% of you (readers or posters) don’t give a crap WHO I am or WHAT my name is, and would *never* be so vain as to think you DO care. But there were a few strange e-mails that made me think differently for a while. Truth is, as I’ve posted many times, I feel extremely lucky and blessed to have the engagements I have, the voice I’ve been given, and the colleagues God has given me to sing this music with. ANd frankly, I do not want to imperil that.
Nevertheless, I hardly think that posting honest and open commentary here actually *would* imperil it — so perhaps I was misguided before. Admittedly, I suppose my judgment was clouded by a difficult family issue in addition to several high-profile engagements I needed to either (1) fulfill or (2) withdraw from to manage a family crisis.
But now that THAT’S over…on to the business at hand.
“What business?” you might ask. “Well,” I answer, “the business of allowing one of Fleming’s ‘defenders’ to defend her on the MERITS, which Bella Figlia intimates that no one does.”
So here we go…
Yes, Fleming has certain mannerisms, and many have increased over time. But so have mine. For instance, I know very well that I indulge in the following “mannerisms” -
(1) In the heat of performing “Pour mon ame” in La Fille du Regiment, with its nine high-C’s, I usually sing the voiced “m” of “mon” on middle C, not high C, then open up to the vowel sound on the high C itself, having voiced though the initial consonant on middle C. Technically, this is “incorrect.” I *should* be voicing the initial “m” on the high C, too — but doing so raises my laryns to my eyeballs, and my “mannered” way is actually much more comfortable for me vocally — and more beautiful for the listener.
There have been coaches who have bitched about this to me — but my response is “Yes, you are correct — and I will try to do as you ask.” (Of course, I already know of the problem and can’t really do anything about it now). But the tradeoff for the theatre is this: They get a tenor with solid, full-voiced high C’s with consistent execution who isn’t afraid of florid music, and who can sing healthfully throughout all rehearsals and performances.
This is a conscious choice, and I will continue to make it.
Another example: At the opening of “Fra poco a me ricovero” from the last act of Lucia, I realize I have a “mannered” way of approaching a few of the F-sharps, which are right in my passaggio. The mannerism is that (at the beginning, for example) I sing the short F-sharp of “co-a” with a straight-tone delivery, keeping it in basically modal voice without “flipping” to full “above-passaggio-voice” because that would lose too much color in MY vocal platform.
Now, some voice teachers (those at Juilliard including) have commented that this is not healthy. Well, it is for me. And the the tradeoff is that the theatre gets a tenor who can sing Lucia with reasonable depth and color, but ALSO a tenor who can sing the WRITTEN high E-flat in Act One (look at the score on “questo pegno” in the duet) and crown Act Two with a high D along with Lucia over the chorus, AND who crowns the final cabaletta with another high D to bring down the final curtain — sans chorus, so it’s risky — but it’s NEEDED. After all, without that — the opera ended 20 minutes ago with Lucia’s high E-flat!! Well, bullshit on THAT, I say.
So…this is to say that ALL singers have some degree of mannerisms in their singing, and these often grow larger with the passage of time. So let’s discuss Fleming’s.
I have sung *many* performaces of the Italian Tenor in Rosenkav to Fleming’s Marshallin. Every night, though I am free to leave at the end of Act One — and Fleming does not return until Act Three!!! — I invariably remain to hear her sing, and Rosenkav is NOT NOT NOT my fave lit. Sure, she has a tendency to swoop and dive through Act One, but her instincts are SPOT ON every night.
Sure, she occasionally starts to speak on pitch in the big monologue, takes out the vibrato, grabs her larynx muscularly, and sings on the edge of her chords when singing about “the way things used to be” (etc.) in order to conjure up a sense of wistfulness or bygone youth, or whatever.
But guess what? IT WORKS.
That’s right, and the audience LOVES it. Then, during the final trio, she absolutely blows the roof off.
I will NEVER forget one night back in the late 90′s at the Bastille (which is basically where I try out many new roles, as they have EXCELLENT coaching staff there, in many ways superior to the Met’s). During the famous “final trio” of the 3rd Act of Rosenkav, the Fleming/Graham/Bonney trio was simply one of the most ravishing, uplifting, soaring, and moving musical performances I’ve ever witnessed. And that’s saying a LOT.
I watched and listened from the wings because I wanted to hear what it was sounding like onstage, not in the house — because I was still “fairly” young on the international circuit, and that kind of full-throated Strauss singing was a rarity for me to experience (because I am usually couped up in Mozart, Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti, and lighter Verdi as I should be).
When Fleming made her exit, and as Graham and Bonney finished out their little cutesy duet, I walked over to her (as Graham and Bonney) were finishing the show) and told her, “You know, listening to you sing that trio for the past several weeks of rehearsals and performances has *literally* changed the way I think about singing and vocal technique. Literally changed it forever.”
She put her arm around me and said, “Is that why you’ve been hanging around every night after you finish your big aria 3 hours earlier?” I thought about her question and said, “Well…yes, I guess it is, now that you mention it.”
And she said, “Take this for what it’s worth, kid: I sing this whole show just to sing that trio. And I noticed that your entire vocal platform seemed to change for your big aria after we got onstage witht he orchestra and all these Strauss-type voices showed up.”
I said, “Yes, it did.” She said, “Don’t ever go back. Just keep doing exactly what you did tonight, even in your Bellini and Rossini — and there will be no stopping you.”
Well, she was right. Vocally, she knows EXACTLY what she is doing. And yes, even Ms. Fleming has to make sacrifices to maintain a certain color and flexibility in her voice. These, too, are conscious choices. So, let’s talk about that, too:
Have any of you noticed that Fleming’s recorded high E-flats — such as those in “Glitter and Be Gay” and the interpolated high E-flat near the end of the “Era desso” cabaletta from Lucrezia Borgia — are (sort of) whistle-toned and head-voiced at the expense of her normally rich and gorgeous color? Well, that was NOT the case with the Houston Traviatas. I was in Houston at the time of the sitz probe and the opening, attending both. Unlike her Met performances, she DID sing the high E-flat at the end of Act One in Houston, and they were full-voiced, balls-to-walls high E-flats.
I even asked her about that a year or so after the “bel canto” album came out — specifically asking her why she didn’t just do an E-flat at the END of the Lucrezia aria instead of in the penultimate, which I found less effective.
Her response actually made a lot of sense, and I’m not going to go into the whole thing — but suffice it to say that for vocal technical reasons, that was the best (if not the only) choice.
Yes, she can be bluesy and free with line-bending and phrase-pulling, but this is what she wants to do, and in the live theatre, it can be quite effective. Similarly, I remember that when I was singing Rossini’s Mathilde de Shabran (a fiendishly difficult part) I basically HAD to resort to some un-Rossinian line bending just to GET THROUGH the damned thing! Yet no one could really bitch about it, because it was basically impossible to find a tenor to sing it at ALL.
Likewise, we are hardly in a position to bitch about Fleming’s shortcomings when, in fact, she IS pretty damned good at most everything she does. Afterall, shouldn’t we keep things in perspective??? To wit:
Renee Fleming has provided hundreds and hundreds of transcendent nights in the theatre for untold thousands of people around the world. They LOVE her — and they can’t ALL be wrong.
The Interpolator
Jesus, and I thought I wrote long posts.
Look, dude, I’m glad you enjoy her singing as it is now (not in the early 90′s, by the way, when she was – as I have ALWAYS maintained – singing like a fucking goddess).
I suggest, however, that you did not, in fact, defend on the merits of her singing here. In fact, you basically admitted in your comment that she violates pretty much every tenet of classical bel canto singing these days.
What you defended – and I respect this completely – was your REACTION to her doing so. De gustibus non disputandem est. You like the way she does things vocally…I don’t. I wish she’d go back to the way she was singing in 1996-1997 (I think), when I heard her as Marguerite in Faust and was moved to tears by the sheer beauty of it.
I might also add that your performing, with which I am very familiar (no, we have never worked together and probably never will…I am a mere peon in the grand scheme of things) never, to my ear, violates the boundaries of taste and, well, beautiful singing, even with the liberties you mention taking.
Cheers.
These “pro and con” Fleming arguments from the current crop of opera fanatics really takes me back to my youth. That was a time when to adore Maria Callas could bring on heaps of scorn. Believe me, I was the recipient of much scorn because in the late 1950s through the 1960s I was very vocal about my adoration of La Divina. I simply find it wonderful to read these arguments herein. It means to me that “opera’s passion” is alive and well even in 2006.
As a “foot note” I just lost a long time friend over a statement I made regarding that “sight challenged” tenor Bocalli (sp?) I simply stated that he was NOT an opera singer
ITDCS said “Well it’s pretty stupid that people are that caddy and jealous that they feel it their business to tear down someone who is successful [Renee Fleming] – rather than just enjoy what the person has to offer, or, if they don’t enjoy it, then walk away.”
Like what you guys did to CHERYL STUDER, who got torn down for a lot less than the musically transmitted diseases of America’s Favorite Whore? How soon we forget.
And by the by, aren’t ITDCS and theinterpolator the same individual?
callasorphan: good lord, you lost a FRIEND for saying that?
I don’t even ditch friends for disliking MY singing!
Marshallin,
When you write,
“And by the by, aren’t ITDCS and theinterpolator the same individual?”
what ARE you talking about?? I don’t even understand what that MEANS, unless you are implying that we are actually the same person posting under different screen-names, or whatever.
Believe me, nothing could be further from the truth — and ITDCS will no doubt join me in saying so when he reads that!
T.I.
At our age we DO tend to take ourselves far too seriously! You young ones don’t do that what ever you do!
Marschallin, Cheryl Studer could never be compared to Renee Fleming. Their faults are completely different ones and, personally, my ears – as well as most of my friends and colleauges who have voiced similar sentiments – cannot easily forgive or forget the flaws and inconsistencies of Studers singing. We can forgive Fleming because her sound is actually beautiful – also I haven’t known Fleming to sing out of tune or pushed. People here claim to have heard recordings where she misses high notes – that may very well be true – I haven’t heard those recordings myself. I have no explanation for them and unfortunately cannot comment on them because I have never heard them. But of what I HAVE heard of Fleming as compared to Studer (and I’ve heard ALOT of both)…Fleming will always win, hands down. Some crimes are worse than others. Something that I cannot just walk away from about Studer is the fact that she has such an illustrious discography and people like Deutekom and Gencer and Gavazzeni-Mazzola and Guleghina and various other truly AMAZING singers who weren’t and aren’t given those recording opportunities. For example: Studer should never have ever sung Odabella in Attila – it was far too heavy for her and it’s one of the reasons why she destroyed her instrument. They could have just as easily asked Dimitrova or Mazzola or Guleghina to sing on that recording and then we’d have a decent soprano to listen to in that part other than Deutekom who rightly reigned over that role. Also, Fleming SHOULD have been the soprano on the recording of Floyd’s Susannah and I was heart-broken to see Studer’s name on the album instead of Fleming who sang the role magnificently at the Met – I was at the premiere. Like I said in the past, had Studer kept to an appropriate repertoire, she would have been a great singer – Fleming hasn’t exactly sung anything that isn’t suitable for her in the sense that she doesn’t choose repertoire that is destroying her voice.
Secondly – The Interpolator and I are most definately NOT the same person. He has sung roles that I will not sing for many years to come and it’s clear based on our discussions and different points of view that we are very very different. That’s a ridiculous suggestion on your part and makes absolutely no sense!