Cover image: Renée Fleming with Seattle Symphony (Photo: Seattle Symphony/Carlin Ma)
Seattle Symphony’s opening gala at Benaroya Hall Saturday night was very much an occasion: the lobby was jammed with concert-goers in evening dress (though many opted for a casual look as well), all anticipating the appearance of opera diva Renée Fleming in a program devised around her choices of works to sing.
Ahh, Fleming! Her eclectic musical tastes are well known, as is her courage in trying out new avenues (she’ll spend next season on Broadway), so her generous performance included not only the expected Italian opera arias, but songs by the contemporary Icelandic composer-singer Björk and, perhaps the highlight of the entire concert, Samuel Barber’s setting of James Agee’s poem “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.” This is a look back to an age of innocence for the child protagonist and peaceful prosperity for the country, in which nothing much happens. Supertitles made the words easy to follow so the listener could concentrate on the music.
Fleming captured all its moods: the nostalgia, the security, intimations of change, winding down of day, heartfelt prayer and enigmatic ending. Her voice, so expressive, is a beacon to aspire to for young singers, with her rich but clear tone and very light vibrato, just enough to enhance and deepen the moment, yet which she can change to a more edgy sound as she did for the Björk songs.
For these, she used a microphone but kept her hallmark tone quality while adding the edges implicit in the songs. The orchestral adaptation by Hans Ek maintained the bell-like impressions in Björk’s creepy song about the feeling of a virus taking over a body, an analogy to consuming love. In the second song, waves of brass and high winds depicted the ecstasies of love in triumphant heraldic mode while Fleming’s voice soared above in a meditative line, dying away at the end. Unusual works, worth hearing again.
As Fleming herself mentioned after intermission, you can’t have a concert by an opera singer without Italian arias and a sumptuous dress and she gave us both. Her dress for the first half, elegantly draped and shimmering deep blue, was succeeded for the second half by a dramatic black one, off the shoulder and with scarlet flowers on the full skirt.
For the arias, Fleming chose ones we rarely hear, Refice’s “Ombre di nubre” (“Shadow of a Cloud”) and Tosti’s “Aprile” (“April’), the first a path to peacefulness, the second spring as a metaphor for blossoming love. In both, Fleming’s expressive voice and easy top notes gave them meaning, but it was her third choice and her performance of it which was the second major event of the concert.
Before her first notes in Boito’s “L’altra notte in fondo al mare” (“The other night into the sea”) from Mefistofele, her stance indicated a despairing woman in desperate straits, likely chained. (Fleming is a superb actress as well as singer.) The vocal line, largely in a lower range, showed Fleming’s remarkable mezzo timbre, strong and with depth, with which she gave a searing performance. She again used those middle ranges in “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana,” (“Well then? I’ll go far away”) from Catalina’s La Wally.
The close to capacity audience gave her every opportunity to sing encores, and she obliged with three: a familiar favorite, “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh my beloved father”) from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi; the equally familiar “I Could Have Danced All Night” from Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady, in which she insisted the audience join her, and Dvořák’s “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka.
Pablo Rus Roseta leads the Seattle Symphony (Photo: Seattle Symphony/Carlin Ma)
While it was a shame that music director Ludovic Morlot was sidelined with an injury, the concert was an opportunity for the orchestra’s young associate conductor, Pablo Rus Roseta, to shine, which he did. Given only about a week to prepare to direct the mostly less-well-known arias and songs chosen by Fleming, as well as Samuel Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal and Verdi’s Overture to La forza del destino, he managed very well to balance the orchestra with Fleming’s voice and nuanced performance. The Verdi overture particularly pulsed with energy, contrasts and forewarnings, with associate principal flute Jeffrey Barker’s long expressive solos standing out.
The concert began as the season always does, with a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but this arrangement by John Williams was so unusual that nobody realized it what it was until several measures in — gradually people began to stand until at the end everyone was on their feet.
