Soprano Fleming delivers divine inspiration

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This article was published 18/09/2019 (2441 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An angel with a golden voice graced the Centennial Concert Hall stage Tuesday night, as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra opened its 72nd season with legendary American lyric soprano Renée Fleming.

The concert was led by maestro Daniel Raiskin, who started his second full season on the podium, and introduced by departing WSO president Terry Sargeant who promised us “a real treat.” It was the fourth instalment in the annual Asper Foundation Opening Night Gala series, which has also welcomed such luminaries as violinists Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman and pianist Emanuel Ax.

These one-night-only concerts give Winnipeggers a rare opportunity to experience the highest echelons of world-class artists. This year’s multi Grammy award winner marked her Manitoba debut by proving her stellar international reputation with every artfully crafted, well-spun note.

The 145-minute program (including intermission) opened with Raiskin’s masterfully paced interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture. It featured the charismatic singer in one of her signature works, Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs), his final complete work, which was composed at age 84. Fleming has twice recorded the meditative song cycle based on Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff’s poetry about love and loss, also immortalized by the world’s greatest singers, including Jessye Norman, Lucia Popp, and Elisabeth Schwartzkopf.

Fleming was welcomed to the stage by a standing ovation from the mixed generation audience of 1,712, that ranged from community elders to university music students. She launched into opening song Fruhling, (Spring) that provided the first taste of her velvety vocals, effortless phrasing and expressive artistry, despite some balance issues with the orchestra — not helped by Strauss’s lushly orchestrated score that included sweeping strings and noble horn passages — that often subsumed her lower range.

At an age when others might begin to contemplate retirement, it’s remarkable that Fleming has not lost any vocal lustre; her soaring voice still mesmerizes.

Fleming crafted each of the intimate pieces like exquisite jewels that showcased different facets of her voice, including a full palette of tonal colours. September brought greater dramatic intensity, while Beim Schlafengehen (When Falling Asleep) seemed to reach inside one’s soul, heightened further by WSO concertmaster Gwen Hoebig’s sensitive solo that became a dialogue with the singer.

Im Abendrot (At Sunset) with its quote from the composer’s symphonic poem Death and Transfiguration, saw Fleming dynamically shading her uppermost notes with the skill of a master painter before subsiding into a hushed close. The audience, sitting in a half-lit hall in order to read the poetry’s printed texts, gave Fleming another ovation with loud cries of “bravo.”

After a brisk orchestral Overture to Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, which opened the second half, the beaming singer treated listeners to a selection of arias including Tosti’s Ideale, and his La Serenata, sung with relish that received more cheers, as did her performance of Io son l’umile ancella from Cilea’s Andriana Lecouvreur.

The chameleonic opera singer, regarded for her jazz, pop and Broadway show tunes performances, is clearly not afraid to let her hair down. She offered three more songs that were recorded for film last year. We also witnessed her gracious humour and ability to banter with an audience, her speaking voice startling at first and even matter-of-fact, as she took the microphone to introduce several of her pieces after praising the WSO players with an “Aren’t they wonderful!” and “What a great orchestra.”

Those included Tis the last rose of Summer, from von Flotow’s Martha, and a more darkly hewn I have dreamt from Bernard Herrmann’s sole opera Wuthering Heights. A final highlight came with her spine-tingling performance of Dvorak’s Song to the Moon from Rusalka, based on a Slavic mythological tale of a mermaid who longs to become human and fall in love, after first dead-panning “It’s not Disney, so everyone dies at the end.”

As expected, the crowd roared more approval for the artist, who then asked if “we’d like a few encores,” before launching into three, including Puccini’s iconic aria O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi.

Perhaps next time we will get to hear one of the Mozart arias she is renowned for, or another signature song, Ain’t it a pretty night from Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, which being staged by Manitoba Opera this fall – and on many a personal wish list for this concert, including this writer.

A brilliant final touch came as Fleming invited us to warble along on I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady — a charming, if not surreal season highlight. She left us with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, which she introduced as “one of the great exports of Canada,” and made us feel as if we had experienced a taste of the divine.

holly.harris@shaw.ca