The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Renee Fleming reads as The Pioneer, an artist whose leadership shows in her willingness to move first where others hesitate. In conversation on The David Rubenstein Show, she comes across as someone who treats her craft as territory still being opened rather than mastered ground, extending what a soprano's career can encompass.
“Doing much more these days, you sort of stop. Houses of the world. This is a kind of Yes, it is. Well, it's actually, there are two reasons for doing that. I haven't stopped, but I do much, much less now. I mean, I could spend my entire season every year only singing opera, but then I would only be in five cities.”
“Well, you know what, I really felt if I was going to do a project like this, I didn't want to use my classical sound. You know, we've all heard that of people who are opera singers trying to sing pop songs. When I was a student, I actually sang with a jazz trio for two and a half years every weekend in my college town.”
“Well, I had, you know, the kernel of an instrument, and I was certainly a natural musician. I mean, being raised by music teacher parents means that music was the language that I learned before speech. However, I was shy, introverted. I spent a lot of time reading, making crafts alone in my room. I was anything but a performance.”
“Yes, well, we certainly in the circles that I've always sung in are not used to operate as a blood sport. We're not indoctrinated to that kind of point of view. And in Italy and in many theaters in Italy, that's the norm and has been the norm for many, many years.”
The David Rubenstein Show: “Renee Flemming”
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