Renee Fleming made her prom concert debut in London on Wednesday.
Normally I would be restricted to listening on the radio or watching it
on TV as this one was broadcast live, but I was lucky: I was in the
Albert Hall. Did any other UK 'Listers hear it? If so, what did you
think? This was a much hyped concert: there's nothing that sells out a
concert quite like telling people in the morning that there probably
won't be a ticket to be had, and certainly the queue for standing in the
arena (which can't be pre-booked) was right round the block.
The second of her two offerings was the Strauss Four Last Songs, in
which she excelled - it brought it home to me that what marks out a
truly great artiste is not just the ability to "do it" but the fact that
you can be relied upon to "do it" without fail every time. The only
slight flaw was that the middle of the voice was sometimes smothered by
the sound of the orchestra, but I think we could possibly blame Strauss
R for that, or maybe the RAH acoustic. Significantly, when she reached
Beim Schlafengehn, there was not one single suppressed cough to be heard
in the place.
(Oh, I'm as bad as any, the atmosphere gets to me, and as it was so hot,
there were special Proms Fans to be had, made of plastic and shaped like
an artist's palette; unfortunately, I worked out after several attacks
that it was this movement of cold air that was making me cough. BTW, I
do _not_ just cough out loud like some members of the audience, I bury
my face in whatever garment I'm holding on my lap, and I may give those
around me the impression that I'm about to die, but at least it makes
very little noise :[ )
I wish I could be as enthusiastic about Ms Fleming's first offering,
Exsultate Jubilate, but I had very mixed feelings about it. The two
outer movements contained some frankly very ugly coloratura. The more
vibrato there is in the voice, the harder it is to get these runs clean,
and if you _will_ over-shape them, which is the best way I can describe
what she did, the effect is very distorted. This was particularly
noticeable in the Alleluia, where the notes flip back and forth between
just two degrees of the scale, and the effect was very impure indeed.
The previous night we had heard the Danish soprano, Inger Dam Jensen,
singing Les Illuminations (is she known in the states? beautiful voice)
and I was left thinking that I'd rather like to have heard her singing
Exsultate Jubilate, instead of the performance I was listening to.
However, the singing in the middle movement can only be described as
sublime - with, I'm afraid, a couple of buts. It's a sacred piece, yes,
but the music is operatic in style. Does that give the singer licence to
sob and sigh as though she were in character? I'm really not sure; it
_was_ beautifully done, but I felt some of the very sensuous expressing
of the words was rather unnecessary, done for effect, and arguably not
in the best of taste. Opinions, anyone (particularly if you heard it?)
Then, a surprise at the cadenza to this movement. I have always presumed
that the cadenzas that I have seen in my score were Mozart's own, but
that it's acceptable for the performer to add her own(/his own - it was,
apparently, written for a castrato). What made me sit bolt upright was
suddenly to hear eight bars, wordless and unaccompanied, grafted in from
Ruhe Sanft, out of Mozart's Zaide, by way of a cadenza. Beautifully,
beautifully sung - but again, was it showy and in poor taste? A direct
quote from a German opera in the middle of a Latin sacred motet?
BTW, she used German Latin, and slightly inconsistently too. Would this
be because Mozart was Austrian? But then, the castrato he wrote it for
was Italian. Does RF have much of a Latin repertoire? If so, does she
vary the pronunciation according to the composer? (French Latin, for
instance, sounds _very_ strange to English ears: ever heard Sanctus
pronounced the French way?)
Just my random (and usual chaotic) thoughts, 24 hours later.
Linda
PS my spell checker wants me to call these two sopranos Niger Dam
Jennies and Renee Flamingo.
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