Opera star Renee Fleming will perform with the Columbus Symphony Sept. 25
As one of the most acclaimed contemporary opera singers, soprano Renee Fleming has had her taste of all the major parts.
Thirty years ago in March, when she made her first appearance with the world-famous Metropolitan Opera in New York, Fleming appeared as Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” She has since appeared with The Met as Hanna Glawari in Lehar’s “The Merry Widow,” Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Desdemona in Verdi’s “Otello” — you name it.
During such productions, Fleming and her fellow singers are naturally the focus of attention; the orchestra that accompanies her is down below in the pit, out of sight if not out of mind.
Yet Fleming, a four-time Grammy Award winner for her classical records (out of 17 nominations) and a recipient in 2012 of the National Medal of Arts, acknowledges that what she enjoys most is singing as herself, not in a role, and sharing a stage with an orchestra.
“When the orchestra is in the pit, you can’t see them, number one, if you’re on stage,” said Fleming, 62. “You can’t even hear them necessarily, as well. You’re acting out a part and you’re in a theatrical production, so the priorities are a little bit different.”
More:Classical and jazz concerts this season: Columbus Symphony, Jim Brickman underscore season
When she’s eye-to-eye with musicians, though, it’s a whole different story.
“It’s a real luxury,” Fleming said. “The subtlety that occurs in terms of interpretation, the relationship with the conductor — it gives me a lot of joy.”
Eager to perform
Fleming’s latest such appearance will come on Sept. 25, when the singer will perform with the Columbus Symphony in the Ohio Theatre. Joining the singer will be some 77 symphony musicians, including seven newly hired full-time members: violinists Autumn Chodorowski, Zhe Deng and Gyusun Han, violists Spencer Ingersoll and Alice Risov, flute and piccolo player Lydia Roth and principal oboe player Hugo Souza.
The season-opening concert is the first in which the symphony will institute a new policy in which proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test are conditions of admission.
Audience members will need to furnish the vaccination proof or provide results of a negative test completed no earlier than the preceding 72 hours before the show; negative rapid antigen tests will be accepted if done no earlier than the preceding 24 hours. The policy also requires that those unable to be vaccinated, including children age 12 and younger, provide negative COVID tests to attend. All attendees must be masked.
Fleming’s appearance with the symphony was delayed from May, when it was set to close the 2020-21 season. The pandemic led the symphony to adjust its schedule, but Music Director Rossen Milanov thinks the change might have been for the best.
“As soon as we found out that we were not going to be able to put the concert as scheduled at the end of last season, we contacted her and she was very positive and accommodating,” Milanov said. “Of course, opening the season with her is going to be even more meaningful than closing that very odd season that we had to go through.”
Fleming previously performed with the symphony in 2006.
“I’ve always enjoyed coming to Columbus,” she said. “I have a dear high-school friend who lives and works there.”
Touring once again
Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, but raised in Rochester, New York, Fleming is getting acclimated to regular touring again, too. When she spoke with The Dispatch in early September, she was in Vienna as part of a European tour that had begun several weeks prior.
“I didn’t go anywhere for the first 12, 14 months (of the pandemic),” said Fleming, who makes her home in the Washington, D.C., area. She performed some socially-distanced shows and gave virtual performances during her time off. (Last December, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ YouTube channel featured Fleming’s “Home for the Holidays” concert of Christmas music.)
“The streaming and ... digital performances are not a replacement for live performance,” Fleming said. “You don’t feel as free. You’re worried about the microphone picking up too much closeness. I find it a little bit ungratifying.”
Not that Fleming’s fans would pass up any opportunity to hear her voice.
More:New Albany's Hinson Amphitheater set to welcome outdoor concert-goers
“She is such a star because she has such a diverse repertoire, ranging, of course, from Baroque times and classical and 20th-century opera and going into the American songbook,” Milanov said. “I think this is probably one of the secrets why everybody loves her.”
That musical diversity will be on display in the concert in Columbus, which will include Fleming singing Richard Strauss’ “Four Last Songs” — probably the work she performs most frequently, she said.
“I never get tired of it,” she said. “You can insert your own life and experience into this poetry.”
Also on the bill is a piece written for Fleming by Columbus composer Andrew Lippa, “The Diva”; and selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “The Sound of Music.” The latter piece makes different demands than traditional opera.
“It’s more word-based,” Fleming said of singing from the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook. “(There’s) less concentration on music, ... and more concentration in what you’re expressing in words.”
And, among the arias she has chosen, particularly apropos for the late September performance will be “ ’Tis The Last Rose of Summer” from Friedrich von Flotow’s opera “Martha.”
“I always try to give something to everyone,” Fleming said. “That’s something I enjoy.”
Most of all, though, she’s glad to be performing for live audiences again — especially in the company of 77 of her closest friends.
“People missed the performing arts,” Fleming said. “They’re desperate to have this shared live experience.”
tonguetteauthor2@aol.com
At a glance
Soprano Renee Fleming will perform with the Columbus Symphony at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St. Tickets cost $56 to $210. For more information, visit www.columbussymphony.com.