Renee Fleming (Soprano)
One of the most beloved and celebrated musical ambassadors of our time,
soprano Renée Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate
artistry, and compelling stage presence. At a White House ceremony in 2013, the
President awarded her the National Medal of Arts, America's highest honor for an
individual artist. Known as “the people’s diva” and winner of the 2013 Grammy
Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo, she continues to grace the world’s greatest
opera stages and concert halls, now extending her reach to include other musical
forms and media. In recent years, Renée has hosted a wide variety of television
and radio broadcasts, including the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series for
movie theaters and television, and Live From Lincoln Center on PBS. She brought
her voice to a vast new audience in 2014, as the first classical artist to sing
the National Anthem at the Super Bowl.
As a musical statesman, Renée has been sought after on numerous distinguished
occasions, from the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to performances in Beijing
during the 2008 Olympic Games. In 2014, she sang in the televised concert at the
Brandenburg Gate to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall. In 2012, in an historic first, she sang on the balcony of Buckingham
Palace in the Diamond Jubilee Concert for HM Queen Elizabeth II. In January
2009, Renée was featured in the televised We Are One: The Inaugural Celebration
at the Lincoln Memorial concert for President Obama. She has also performed for
the United States Supreme Court and, in November 2009, celebrated the 20th
anniversary of the Czech Republic’s “Velvet Revolution” at the invitation of
Václav Havel. A ground-breaking distinction came in 2008 when Renée became the
first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline
an opening night gala.
In the coming season, Renee will bring her acclaimed portrayal of the
Marschallin in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier to the Royal Opera, Covent Garden,
and the Metropolitan Opera, in a new production by director Robert Carsen. Renée
concluded 2015 with performances in the title role of Lehar's The Merry Widow at
Lyric Opera of Chicago, under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis. She was seen in the
premiere of this production at the Metropolitan Opera last season. Also last
year, she appeared as Countess Madeleine in Strauss's Capriccio, both at Lyric
Opera of Chicago, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, and with conductor Christian
Thielemann at the Semperoper Dresden. In April of 2015 she made her Broadway
debut as an actress in the comedy Living on Love, for which she was nominated
for a Drama League Award.
Renée's recital schedule in recent years has spanned the globe, including Rio
de Janeiro, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Quito, Bogota, Paris, Geneva, London,
Vienna, Sydney, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Taipei. In 2013, she joined with the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to present American Voices, a
concert and 3-day festival celebrating the best American singing in all genres.
The festival was the subject of a Great Performances documentary on PBS in
January of 2015. Her concert schedule in 2015 included a gala benefit in Los
Angeles with Andrea Bocelli, the Gala season opening of the Cleveland Symphony
Orchestra, and a tour of Australia and New Zealand. In the new year she
has already appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony
Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchastra (Carnegie Hall), and the Royal
Stockholm Philharmonic. In May, she sang in the National Memorial Day Concert
with the National Symphony Orchestra, telecast from the lawn of the U.S. Capitol
on PBS.
A four-time Grammy winner, Renée won the 2013 Best Classical Vocal Solo
Grammy Award for Poèmes (Decca, 2012), a collection of 20th-Century French
music, including works composed especially for her by Henri Dutilleux. Her most
recent recording for Decca is Berg: Lyric Suite; Wellesz: Sonnets, with the
Emerson String Quartet. Her first-ever holiday album, Christmas in New York, was
released by Decca in October of 2014. Last year, she was featured with Yo-Yo Ma
on the Billy Childs album, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, their
track “New York Tendaberry” winning the Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instruments
and Vocals. In June 2010, Decca and Mercury records released the CD
Dark Hope, which features Renée covering songs by indie-rock and pop artists.
Her recent opera dvds include Strauss's Arabella and Ariadne auf Naxos, and
Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. Other recent DVD releases include Handel's
Rodelinda, Massenet’s Thaïs and Verdi's Otello, all three in the Metropolitan
Opera Live in HD series, and Verdi’s Traviata, filmed at London’s Royal Opera
House. Ms. Fleming's 2010 DVD Renée Fleming & Dmitri Hvorostovsky: A Musical
Odyssey in St. Petersburg follows Renée and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky to
Russia, where they explore and perform in some of St. Petersburg's most historic
locations. In recent years, this fourteen-time Grammy nominated artist has
recorded everything from Strauss’s complete Daphne to the jazz album Haunted
Heart to the movie soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
She recorded Alexandre Desplat's theme song, "Still Dream" for the soundtrack of
the Dreamworks Animation feature, Rise of the Guardians. Her recording honors
range from the 2009 Echo Award for Strauss’s Four Last Songs to the Prix Maria
Callas Orphée d’Or by the Académie du Disque Lyric for TDK’s DVD production of
Capriccio. In February, 2012, Renée received the Victoire d’Honneur, the highest
award conveyed by the French Victoires de la Musique.
Renée Fleming’s artistry has been an inspiration to many other prominent
artists, such as Chuck Close and Robert Wilson, whose portraits of her were
included in the Metropolitan Opera’s 2007 fundraising auction. Two portraits of
Ms. Fleming were also created by Francesco Clemente, who revealed one in
Salzburg in spring 2007, with the Metropolitan Opera displaying the other in
2008. Photographic portraits include works by Brigitte Lacombe and Irving Penn,
among others. In June of this year, the Annie Leibowitz portrait of Renée was
added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in
Washington, DC. Nelson Shank's portrait of Renée in the title role of Rusalka is
on display in the portrait gallery of the Metropolitan Opera.
Renée Fleming is a champion of new music and has performed works by a wide
range of contemporary composers, including recent compositions by Anders
Hillborg, Henri Dutilleux, Brad Mehldau, André Previn, and Wayne Shorter. Among
her numerous awards are Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit (2015); the
Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal (2011); Sweden’s Polar Prize (2008); the
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur from the French government (2005); Honorary
Membership in the Royal Academy of Music (2003); and honorary doctorates from
Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University (2015),
Carnegie Mellon University (2012), the Eastman School of Music (2011) and The
Juilliard School (2003), where she was also commencement speaker.
An advocate for literacy, Renée Fleming has been featured in promotional
campaigns for the Association of American Publishers (Get Caught Reading), and
the Magazine Publishers of America’s READ poster campaign for the American
Library Association. She was honored by The New York Public Library as a
“Library Lion.” Her book, The Inner Voice, was published by Viking Penguin in
2004, and released in paperback by Penguin the following year. An intimate
account of her career and creative process, the book is also published in France
by Fayard Editions, in the United Kingdom by Virgin Books, by Henschel Verlag in
Germany, Shunjusha in Japan, and by Fantom Press in Russia.
In addition to her work on stage and in recordings, Renée Fleming has
represented Rolex timepieces in print advertising since 2001. In 2008, she
launched La Voce by Renée Fleming, a fragrance designed for her, with the
proceeds benefiting the Metropolitan Opera. Master Chef Daniel Boulud created
the dessert “La Diva Renée” (1999) in her honor, and she inspired the “Renée
Fleming Iris” (2004), which has been replicated in porcelain by Boehm. Having
been added to Mr. Blackwell’s best dressed list, her concert gowns have been
designed by Reem Acra, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano for Dior, Douglas
Hannant, Christian Lacroix, Oscar de la Renta, Angel Sanchez and Vivienne
Westwood. In June of 2014, the Smithsonian added the gown designed by Vera Wang
for Renée's Super Bowl anthem performance to the permanent collection of the
Museum of American History. In addition to serving as the face of opera for two
public transit campaigns in New York and London, Renée has appeared on The Late
Show with David Letterman, The Martha Stewart Show, Spectacle: Elvis Costello
with…, The View and Prairie Home Companion as “Renata Flambé,” among numerous
other media outlets.
In March of this year, Renée was appointed Artistic Advisor-at-Large for the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is currently a member of the
Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the Board of Sing for Hope,
the Board of Trustees of Asia Society, and the Artistic Advisory Board of the
Polyphony Foundation, which works to bridge the divide between Arab and Jewish
communities in Israel by creating a common ground where young people come
together around classical music. She is a creative advisor to AIR, the
Association of Independents in Radio. In 2010, she was named the first-ever
Creative Consultant at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where she is also a member of the
Board and a Vice President. At Lyric Opera of Chicago, she curated the creation
of a world-premiere opera based on the best-seller Bel Canto for Lyric Opera's
2015-2016 season. A performance of the production will be telecast on PBS Great
Performances in the coming season.
www.reneefleming.com
Renee Fleming "Song to the moon" Rusalka Gala |
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About This Video 06:00 Avery Fischer Hall, 1991 |
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