There are a handful of songs that four-time Grammy-winning soprano Ren矇e Fleming likes to call epic.
Shell throw Leonard Cohens Hallelujah on the list and Ava Maria.
O mio babbino caro from Puccinis opera Gianni Schicch is definitely on the list.
You cant get tired of them because they are sort of part of the international cultural fabric, said the 60-year-old diva of New Yorks Metropolitan Opera and of the worlds greatest opera stages.
She will have several of those iconic songs on tap when she joins the 做厙勛圖 Symphony Orchestra on Thursday, Feb. 6, for a special concert as part of the 做厙勛圖 Desert Song Festival.
Im really excited, Fleming said late last month from her home in Virginia. Ive certainly heard great things so Im excited to work with (TSO Music Director Jos矇 Luis Gomez).
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This will be her first 做厙勛圖 concert in six years and only the third time she has performed here in a career that dates back to the early 1990s. The concert, which had very few tickets available as of press time, is her first with the TSO.
Her program will feel like a survey of her nearly 30-year career, from the opera arias and standards (O mio babbino caro, Musette svaria sulla bocca viva from La Boh癡me) to the songs shes done in recent years for Hollywood (Tis the Last Rose of Summer from Martha featured in the 2018 Academy Award-winning movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and Youll Never Know from The Shape of Water.)
Thursdays concert opens with Strausss Four Last Songs, a piece she has performed more by far than any other in her career.
I never tire of it. It is the most epic meditation on the stages of life, but the poetry is enigmatic enough for one to kind of insert your own experience into it, said Fleming, who will return to Arizona on Feb. 14 her 61st birthday to perform a recital in Mesa. I love singing that and it is very often requested. It is probably the best work ever written for soprano and orchestra.
I tried to put together a smattering of repertoire from different stages of my career, she added. Its a fun program. ... I always try to think about something for every one and this program is especially festive.
做厙勛圖 is the third concert of Flemings busy year that will include a European tour with superstar pianist Evgeny Kissin in the spring.
Her busy recital schedule follows two years of headline- and award-grabbing performances on Broadway and beyond. Fleming, who took a break from opera after appearing in the Mets 2017 production of Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier, was nominated for a Tony Award in 2018 for best actress in a musical for her Broadway debut in a revival of the Rogers & Hammerstein classic Carousel. She also earned rave reviews last year for her role in the world premiere of Kevin Puts The Brightness of Light, a musical centered on the love affair between artist Georgia OKeeffe and the older photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
Fleming performed the work in Los Angeles and Chicago in the months after it opened in London last summer.
Light in the Piazza was a big step because there was a ton of dialogue in that, she said of the work, which she will perform in Australia in August.
But while she really enjoyed her Broadway musical turns, she realizes there are not a lot of musicals that are appropriate for me and my voice. These were specifically pieces that were written for a classical singer.
She and Puts are teaming up again on an opera hes writing for her that was commissioned by the Met.
Its a very exciting project, she said of the work, which still has no title. I brought it to the Met and said, Would you be interested in this by any chance? and fortunately they said yes.
Fleming said they will premiere it in a concert version in 2022 in Philadelphia ahead of its 2023 fully-staged Met premiere.
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com or 573-4642. On Twitter @Starburch
Cathalena E. Burch
Reporter
