CLASSICAL ON CD: Coenraad Visser
THE new Decca diva is American soprano Renee Fleming. Two years ago she was a last-minute replacement for Georg Solti’s live recording of Cosi fan tutte. So enthusiastic was the critical reception that Decca immediately signed her as an exclusive artist. That spurred a publicity campaign last launched to place mezzo Cecilia Bartoli on the musical map. Like the Bartoli blitz, the Fleming promoters seek to capitalise on her good looks, with cascading red blond hair prominent on most CD covers and publicity stills.
But how good is Fleming really? Perhaps the shortest description of her voice is that it is like Kiri Te Kanawa’s but with character. The outstanding characteristic of Fleming’s voice is its creamy evenness in all registers, although there are already signs that her high register may not much longer suit roles like Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Indeed, on her disc of Mozart arias with the Orchestra of St Luke’s conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, she sounds far too matronly for Mozart’s pert maid. Her characterization of Fiordiligi for Solti’s Cosi is, for all the silky smoothness of tone, also perhaps just a touch too staid.
But here is a formidable Countess in Figaro in the making, even if she does not intend recording that role as yet.
Like her Decca co-star Te Kanawa, Fleming is equally at home in Mozart and Richard Strauss. Last year I heard her as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier under Christoph Eschenbach’s direction, a poignant and carefully thought through performance that I will long remember. A recording of this production will be issued shortly.
In the meantime, her reading of this composer’s Vier letzte Lieder recalls great interpreters like Gundula Janowitz (with Karajan on DG). Fleming is alive to every nuance of these moving songs, observing exquisite pianissimos and not afraid to indulge in the odd tasteful portamento.
And like Janowitz, it is only natural that she should turn to Schubert lieder. Accompanied by Eschenbach on the piano, her most recent disc offers a wide-ranging collection of mainly well-known Schubert repertoire. Anyone wanting evocative but perfectly judged performances of favourites such as Heidenroslein, Die Forelle and Gretchen am Spinrade should buy this.
Want her in different repertoire? She can also be heard in Massenet’s Herodiade and Rossini’s Armida for Decca, and Donizetti’s Rosmonda d’Inghilterra for Opera Rara.