Renee Fleming sings standards?

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Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/23/05 at 6:30pm

I'm always skeptical of Opera stars who decide to "Slum it" and sing some pop songs, but I'm listening to Renee Fleming on Prairie Home Companion and I'm speechless!! Anyone heard the forthcoming allbum yet?

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/23/05 at 6:40pm

I have a Te Kanawa album of Broadway tunes and standards that is dreadful. I'm glad to hear Fleming finally did the impossible!

Have I ever shown you my Shattered Dreams box? It's in my Disappointment Closet. - Marge Simpson

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/23/05 at 7:07pm

Fleming wasn't the first to get them right. Mezzo-Soprano Eileen Farrell recorded two amazing albums in 1959 called "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" and "Eileen Farrell Sings," and then a follow-up album in 1991 called "Torch Songs." The first album begins with her wailing on "Blues in the Night" and more than doing it justice.

Rath, I think you would particularly like her voice and style.

Having seen Renee Fleming live in one recital and two operas, I wouldn't be at all suprised if she did them well.

Another opera singer who knows what to do with these songs is Dawn Upshaw.

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/23/05 at 7:12pm

The first two albums are now available together on this CD.

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/23/05 at 9:23pm

I put Eileen Farell in a whole nother category, Pal, and you are absolutely right. I am so familiar with her Pop stuff I never even think of her as an Opera Singer. Rath go get it!

And I'm doubly excited as I see from the track listing she sings "Haunted Heart" one of my most infrequently recorded favorites!

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/23/05 at 11:27pm

Apparently Renee Fleming started out singing standards before she turned to opera. I saw her at Elton John's first concert at Radio City, which was a benefit for Juilliard and the Royal Academy of Music. Students from both schools made up a hundred-member orchestra, which sounded amazing. Anyway, she came out at the end as the special guest and sang Your Song with him. I thought she did a terrific job.

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 8:50am

Dawn Upshaw has done quite well with her Broadway/standards recordings.

By the way, I grew up with Dawn. We appeared together in our elementary school talent show when we were 6 and 7, and in high school, I played Doc to her Maria in West Side Story.

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 9:10am

I'm sure her singing was gorgeous, but I bet she was great in the final scene. "How many bullets left, Chino?"

Updated On: 4/24/05 at 09:10 AM

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 10:10am

Bryn Terfel has a couple of really wonderful CDs of showtunes. One of Rodgers and Hammerstein and one of Alan Jay Lerner songs. I highly recommend both.
Something Wonderful

PEACE.

#10

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 10:59am

We just saw Eileen Farell in a tape at the Museum of Radio and Television singing You Could Drive A Person Crazy with Carol Burnett and another singer whose name escapes me - and she was quite good - and I remember hearing recordings of her singing pop stuff when I was a child - quite a lovely sound. I like Renee Fleming..I believe she could do standards justice - unlike that God-Awful recording by Kiri - Yikes...

"I don't really get the ending,all i can go with is when after several months,Judith saw Pat sang,and later she kissed him on the toilet,after that the story back to where Pat went down from the stage after he'd sung,and he went to the italian lady.I just don't get it,what Judith exatcly meant when he kissed Pat that she had seen,and did Pat end up together with The Italian Lady?Please help me,thank u very much!" Quote from someone on IMDB in reference to a movie he/she didn't understand. Such grammar!

#11

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 11:08am

I'm going to third and fourth those Dawn Upshaw comments. What a lovely voice she wraps around musical theatre. Too bad there seems to be no room for her in an actual Broadway musical, but perhaps she's also not interested.
Julie Migenes also sings those incredible (mostly) songs from Rags remarkably well.

ON the Terfel/Fleming Broadway album, Renee's a bit overwrought (in that overpronunciated, oversung manner of so many opera singers) but her "All the Wasted Time" somehow managed to surprise me.

#12

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 12:21pm

eeeewwwww i can't stand renee fleming!!! i just don't like really heavy operatic soprano voices. but doesn't she already have another CD of standards out? i swear she does. i feel like i've heard her sing "in a sentimental mood".....and i think unfortunate is a good word for that.

this is what i think: opera singers should sing opera. MAYBE some classicalish broadway if they feel like it....but unless they REALLY REALLY REALLY can do it, stay away from the standards/jazzish songs that require really simple, almost raw voices. it's just my personal opinion. i mean, can you imagine how much the opera community would FLIP out if someone like sherie rene scott all of a sudden decided to release a CD of arias?? i don't think they'd be to happy about it.

give me hei kyung hong over renee fleming ANY day!!!

"grace, you're stuffed in a box getting rid of ass plaque. let's face it, this evening is a bust."

#13

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 12:21pm

sorry, double post

"grace, you're stuffed in a box getting rid of ass plaque. let's face it, this evening is a bust."

Updated On: 4/24/05 at 12:21 PM

#14

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 12:36pm

Two words, Sporti...and more than the classical world was outraged.
Michael. Bolton.

#15

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 12:39pm

hahahahahhaahah!! i had TOTALLY forgotten about that bwaysinger!!! indeed, they were outraged with good reason!!

"grace, you're stuffed in a box getting rid of ass plaque. let's face it, this evening is a bust."

#16

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 12:46pm

I hesitate to also mention the fiasco that was/is Rod Stewart...

#17

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 1:11pm

Yes - whoever allowed Rod Stewart to record standards should be shot - those are the absolute worst recordings of those songs that I have ever heard - horrible phrasing (not unlike the ridiculous Frank Sinatra) breathing in all the wrong places - having no idea what the lyrics mean - just beyond bad.

#18

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 1:23pm

Fleming doesn't have a "really heavy operatic soprano" voice. I can see where her voice would lend itself nicely to pop, but that doesn't necessarily mean the pop technique is there. Sounds like it is, however, and I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Have I ever shown you my Shattered Dreams box? It's in my Disappointment Closet. - Marge Simpson

#19

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 1:53pm

Do you know the Eileen Farrell recordings, Rath?

#20

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 3:41pm

rath, i guess it's not the heaviest out there...but there's just something about it that makes me cringe.

and don't get me wrong, it's not that i hate opera - i do a lot of it myself actually. but, i don't know...i just usually don't like heavy sopranos so i always just assumed that that was why i didn't like her...if that makes any sense.

"grace, you're stuffed in a box getting rid of ass plaque. let's face it, this evening is a bust."

#21

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 6:19pm

Having just heard her do the two songs, the thing that impressed me was that unlike most operatic voices, she was all about the mood and not all about the note-- does that make sense?

Fleming had not one bit of the Dive in what I heard. In fact I didn't even realize it was her, despite the fact that she'd been interviewed just before. She had a blues quality that was quite remarkable! Think the album drops this week--can't wait to hear it.

#22

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 6:35pm

(thread jack)
Joe - we had dinner at North Pond on Friday - outstanding!!!!

#23

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 9:15pm

Teresa Stratas's two Kurt Weill CDs (records originally) are spectacular.

Not quite in the same league, but also very good, are the Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen songbooks recorded by Sylvia McNair, with piano and bass accompaniment by Andre Previn and David Finck.

I found "Under the Stars," Fleming and Terfel's collaboration, very much a mixed bag. Some good things, but Terfel's stiffly pompous rendition of "Seventy-Six Trombones" bordered on the ludicrous.

I agree with everyone else about Dawn Upshaw. Her cross-over CDs are essentials in any collection. Not just a gorgeous voice, but phrasing that deserves study by anyone interested in lyric interpretation.

One of my favorite, more or less younger, singers is Susan Graham. I'm convinced she could do wonders with the popular standards songbook. Don't know if she has any interest though.

#24

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 10:10pm

I forgot about Teresa Stratas--her Kurt Weill interpretations are extraordinary.

I have the Sylvia McNair CDs but never warmed to them. Ditto the Barbara Hendricks Disney CD.

On a somewhat different track, I have a Marni Nixon Sings Gershwin that is quite special.

And a Scandinavian import CD on which Karita Mattila sings a hell of a "I Could Have Danced All Night." What high notes!

KJ--I also look forward to hearing Susan Graham singing standards. Also Deborah Voight. I think they both would "get" it.

Updated On: 4/24/05 at 10:10 PM

#25

re: Renee Fleming sings standards?

Posted: 4/24/05 at 10:19pm

Did Teresa Stratas sing in a recording of Show Boat?

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