Another job for Renee Fleming

Another job for Renee Fleming

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norman lebrecht

August 05, 2019

She’s to be head of opera at Aspen Music Festival and School, in addition to consultant to Chicago’s Lyric Opera, Artistic Advisor to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and ambassador for a number of other causes.

Ms Fleming, 60 this year, is growing a retirement portfolio.

She will share the Aspen duties with Patrick Summers of Houston Grand Opera.

Comments

  • Alexander says:

    Renée is always a good girl 😉
    Houston Opera is also agreeable cultural mem for my heart – they helped to grow up the best Lucia of nowadays – lovely Albina Shagimuratova –
    so that news is double fine to my ears 😉

  • Caravaggio says:

    Here is hoping future enrollees learn something from her mistakes so as to prevent them from meowing, scooping, sliding, constriction and tension before those traits acquire a life of their own and before it’s too late.

  • Lewis Brooks says:

    Great singer and imaginative director at NYC Opera! Lucky everyone!

  • Carlos Reyes Alamo says:

    you are too perfect my lady!

    Sometimes I wonder if you are from this world

    God save the Queen

    Greetings from Greenwich London
    ⚓️⚓️⛵️⚓️⚓️⚓️⚓️⚓️⛴

    Carlos‍♂️

  • Cantantelirico says:

    There are so many people who are far more qualified to hold the position in Aspen. I feel sorry for the students. They will learn nothing from her about singing. She certainly doesn’t need the money.

    • Yes Addison says:

      I don’t agree with that. Fleming herself had some good teachers and some bad ones, and she did sing well for a long time. We can talk about matters of interpretation and mannerisms that were not to everyone’s taste, sometimes not mine either, but she took care of her voice, said no to some things that would not have been right for her, had a great career, and can communicate intelligently. There are far worse examples of retired or semi-retired “greats” who have been installed in cushy faculty positions, whom I shudder to imagine influencing anyone, unless the advice is “Do the opposite of what I did.”

  • Dorilla says:

    “Caravaggio” : I am sure you have enough conspiracy theories about why you didn’t receive the recognition you think you deserve so much. Maybe it’s your own poison that kept you from having a career that is even half as distinguished as Mrs. Fleming’s? It’s sad to see true talent eaten away by envy and pettiness. What a senseless waste of energy.

    • Nijinsky says:

      My how sensitive and elegant of you to point out that someone (anyone) could have had a distinguished career, would they not take spot at another DISTINGUISHED career, mentioning things along the line with squeaking and wining. True pedagogy. And then there’s of course her imposing age, and experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3j2hdcsfcM&fmt=22

    • Nijinsky says:

      It’s of course spelled “whining,” us uneducated ones just don’t get stuff right, and are so thankful for the education you offer. And you spell it out so well, that anyone who would make anything but glowing statements about Ms. Flemming is:
      1) Creating conspiracy theories because of recognition they feel they should have gotten.
      2) Definitely (not maybe as you say but definitely) Poisoning their own desires to have a career (because that could of course be the only reason for not being in awe of Ms. Fleming, or of ANYONE with such a career, because you know everyone really wants that whether they know it or not).
      3) Is tragic (TRAGIC!) because it’s sad to see someone who COULD HAVE BEEN HALF AS DISTINGUISHED as Ms. Fleming eaten up by envy, pettiness, and partaking in a senseless waste of energy, would they say what they think they honestly think although this could not be the case that that’s what they think because in insulting Ms. Fleming it is exposed for the poison it really is.

      Why, it’s like going to church and not drinking the kool aid, which could NEVER be poison.

      And have a nice day.

  • Wagner says:

    How exciting for Aspen and for young singers! Competition for that program will be no doubt quite intense.

  • Nijinsky says:

    By the way, I don’t know WHY when someone simply says something in honesty, about what they think aren’t desirable qualities to emulate regarding Ms. Fleming, that it suddenly becomes turf wars. And the whole array of supposed jealousy, conspiracy theories and I don’t know what is used.

    And if you are trying to share what you like in Ms. Fleming, or support her, you’re doing the opposite.

    A while ago Norman questioned whether you get tired of Mozart, and I have NEVER seen such a display of trite (Belly-aching!?), pretenses to what have you: superiority of morals, integrity, artistic insight etc. As if Mozart himself isn’t allowed to get tired of himself and take a break. And I happen to find Mozart and Josquin then the two composers that don’t cause me excessive stress, in that to me they seem natural and not produced (although I love all the others in their own way); but when some one simply honestly wonders if one can get tired of it, the responses I really found degrading to Mozart. He doesn’t need it, doesn’t appreciate it.

    • Maria says:

      They’re only armchair musical experts. Some of us have done the job! That set aside, it doesn’t pay to spread your butter so thinly and, in her case, all these jobs to.which she is increasingly attaching her name – and yes, she doesn’t need the money nor the job but tgats the American way of doing things that us Brits font quite manage.

      • Nijinsky says:

        Renee Fleming is fine, actually. It’s just her personality that she likes to keep that busy, and I wish her all the best with that; but what gets me is that it seems to be primarily exactly such personalities (no critique of Ms. Fleming necessarily) that make it currently in such distinguished careers, and then further more into the works upon retiring, it seems.
        I sound like a broken record, but if you go back a few hundred years, or a bit less than that, you will find that the people that wrote the mainstay of the repertoire DID NOT live such a high paced life, because they never would have time to simply allow the music to blossom in their minds. That’s simply a different personality, and yet it doesn’t fit anymore with what’s marketed.

        IMHO

  • Mike says:

    I heard Renee sing in Munich a few weeks ago and she made me cry.

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