Speaker 1: Opera singers are famous for being diva's on and off
Speaker 1: the stage, but American soprano Renee Fleming has spent her
Speaker 1: long and notable career developing a different persona, often being
Speaker 1: called the people's diva. For many a Fleming's fan, she
Speaker 1: is the first and perhaps the only opera star they've
Speaker 1: ever paid close attention to, selling more than two million records,
Speaker 1: winning Grammys and other awards for her work, and even
Speaker 1: singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Most recently,
Speaker 1: Fleming has been starring in the Broadway production of Carousel
Speaker 1: in her Tony nominated role as Nettie Fowler. She recently
Speaker 1: sat down with Carlisle Group co founder David Rubenstein. They
Speaker 1: spoke on David Rubinstein's Bloomberg television program Peer to Peer Conversations.
Speaker 1: You are performing in Carousel, which is not an opera,
Speaker 1: It's a Broadway play. Why are you doing that and
Speaker 1: not opera? I just thought, wow, it would be really
Speaker 1: exciting to do something new. I always love doing new things.
Speaker 1: It's just been an extraordinary experience. I'm the kind of
Speaker 1: person that if I were to say no for any
Speaker 1: number of reasons, I would always wonder, what if and
Speaker 1: so rather than wondering, I typically jump in so opera
Speaker 1: because usually two or three nights a week, perhaps if
Speaker 1: you're doing a show, and let's say the Metropolitan, but
Speaker 1: you're now doing eight shows a week. So just you
Speaker 1: touched on the actual huge difference, right, So you strain
Speaker 1: your voice doing eight shows a week? Is that hurt
Speaker 1: you if you're gonna go do opera later? It wasn't
Speaker 1: that long ago really that people were unamplified on Broadway
Speaker 1: and they sang by in large closer to the way
Speaker 1: that I do because of the drama. They absolutely put
Speaker 1: amplification into every theater now and that makes all the
Speaker 1: difference in the world. So on the opera stage, our
Speaker 1: bodies are the amplifiers. We have to create enough sound
Speaker 1: to be heard over an orchestra chorus and into the
Speaker 1: back of a large hall on Broadway. The really the
Speaker 1: mechanism of microphones and amplification and a really great sound
Speaker 1: is they do that work for us and we can
Speaker 1: kind of take not take it easy, per se, but
Speaker 1: not use power. So explain for people may not be
Speaker 1: familiar with this. In opera, there's no amplification allowed. You
Speaker 1: can't use microphone or anything like that. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Do you know? It's it's the art form is old,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's been that way always, And frankly, I
Speaker 1: believe that the way we're trained enables us to be heard,
Speaker 1: and the the individual quality that we have is so
Speaker 1: powerful and beautiful, actually because we all sound quite different.
Speaker 1: When Oscar Hammers sign and Richard Rogers wrote the play
Speaker 1: and the music for Carousel, they knew at the time
Speaker 1: that some of the lyrics were complicated and there was
Speaker 1: a bit of spousal abuse. And you have concerns about that,
Speaker 1: I actually think you know, and most of opera and
Speaker 1: most of history really Shakespeare also looked at so many
Speaker 1: of these things. I think it's worth, um portraying these
Speaker 1: aspects of the human condition, of human experience, so that
Speaker 1: we can talk about it, so that we can air it.
Speaker 1: It's important to give people a platform to say I
Speaker 1: had a bad experience. UM, no one should. Who should
Speaker 1: ever come to an audience and feel taken unawares, I think,
Speaker 1: and be be hurt by something, but we should be
Speaker 1: affected by it. You sing one of the highlights of
Speaker 1: the show, it's the song at the end, And what
Speaker 1: is that song that is so well known that you've
Speaker 1: sung before about I guess walking alone, So You'll never
Speaker 1: walk alone is one of the great iconic songs. It's
Speaker 1: a universal statement about hope and about resilience. And in
Speaker 1: this piece, it's my character Nettie sings it to Julie
Speaker 1: Justice Billy has died, and um, it's very moving in context.
Speaker 1: And I've sung it a lot before. I sing it
Speaker 1: for the nine eleven memorial a year after nine eleven
Speaker 1: in Washington, and I've sung it all through the years. Um,
Speaker 1: it's something that people absolutely love. Let's talk about how
Speaker 1: you became a very famous soprano, perhaps the most famous
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, you grew up in New York.
Speaker 1: To repeat that, I loved it, so I love that,
Speaker 1: David's true. Just keep saying that, thank you. So you
Speaker 1: grew up in upstate New York, right, and your parents
Speaker 1: were music teachers. Yes, So did they always say to
Speaker 1: you you should grow up to be a great opera
Speaker 1: singer or they never bothered you to No, No, They're shocked.
Speaker 1: They were absolutely shocked. They said, get get a teaching degree,
Speaker 1: and you know you're not going to be a forget
Speaker 1: about that. It's just too impossible. So you know, you
Speaker 1: can imagine their surprise. My mother is still teaching voice.
Speaker 1: She's not She loves it. She's very passionate about teaching. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I you know, it's it's step by step, it's
Speaker 1: it takes an incredible amount of drive, I think, and
Speaker 1: um and resilience again because you know, it's it's hugely competitive. Well,
Speaker 1: when you were a little girl, you were singing in
Speaker 1: many different plays. I guess school plays and so forth.
Speaker 1: I did musicals. I sang a lot of musical and
Speaker 1: never sang a musical again until now. So when you
Speaker 1: apply to college, you wanted to go to a school
Speaker 1: that had a very good music program, and you applied
Speaker 1: to Oberlin and you got into Berlin, but your parents
Speaker 1: really couldn't afford for you to go there, So you
Speaker 1: went to State University in post Yes, and it turned
Speaker 1: out that was a pretty good thing for you because
Speaker 1: they had a very good school of music. Is that right.
Speaker 1: That's and a great voice teacher. So that and that's
Speaker 1: really the one of the key components for success is
Speaker 1: having someone who can help you develop your voice. And
Speaker 1: it's not easy. It's a very individual when you think
Speaker 1: about it. Every instrument is different. Um, it's internal the voice,
Speaker 1: and it requires for each bone structure and each kind
Speaker 1: of physical structure a different set of of of rules
Speaker 1: for technique. So when you went there, you realize you
Speaker 1: were probably better than the average person, and you began
Speaker 1: to sing a little bit professionally, but you did some
Speaker 1: jazz singing as well. You weren't necessary an opera singer.
Speaker 1: Did you like jazz more than opera? I'm still a
Speaker 1: jazz fanatic. I listened to it a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been biking on the river, and that's that's how
Speaker 1: I distress. And I listened to a lot of my
Speaker 1: favorite performers. Uh so, yeah, I still really love that.
Speaker 1: But I think classical for me it was a better
Speaker 1: fit for my temperament. I was shy um. I preferred
Speaker 1: to be in the practice room kind of unlocking and
Speaker 1: working on the process of learning how to sing. I
Speaker 1: loved that as opposed to being an extrovert and a performer.
Speaker 1: I had to learn that. When did you realize that
Speaker 1: you actually were good enough to maybe be a professional singer?
Speaker 1: I just kept going along, So it wasn't as if
Speaker 1: I made a decision. I think when I had the
Speaker 1: Fulbright scholarship. That was a big journey point for me
Speaker 1: to be in Europe, to be steeped in a foreign
Speaker 1: language and studying. I loved that. You begin to prepare
Speaker 1: UH to maybe an opera career. How did you actually
Speaker 1: break through? You know, you finally somebody has to take
Speaker 1: a chance. You know, you have to have one person,
Speaker 1: one impersario who says, I don't care what other people sink.
Speaker 1: I like this soprano and I'm going to give her
Speaker 1: a break. And your first break was in Houston. And
Speaker 1: how did that come about? Somebody called you and said,
Speaker 1: somebody got sick and can you come and perform exactly
Speaker 1: what I had audition for the program for the studio,
Speaker 1: the Young Artist program. A few months later they called
Speaker 1: and said, we had a cancelation singing opera. You sing
Speaker 1: from the chess more and not from the uh throat,
Speaker 1: So we use an optimal breath um expansion sort of intake,
Speaker 1: and then support. Support is really a key thing if
Speaker 1: that optimizes the the amount of sound you can make
Speaker 1: without using pressure, without actually tiring yourself. So somebody can
Speaker 1: go to a sports event and shout and their horse
Speaker 1: the next day you hear or you say, were you
Speaker 1: at a rock concert? Where you at a sports event?
Speaker 1: Where were you? Were you out dancing? You know that
Speaker 1: someone has heard their voice, will sing for three hours. Um,
Speaker 1: just as extreme in terms of how we're using our
Speaker 1: voice and the next day we can do it again.
Speaker 1: When you're singing opera and you don't know the language,
Speaker 1: is that very difficult? Well? I sing in about eight
Speaker 1: eight nine languages, you know, if you include Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings, and I only speak really three of them. Um,
Speaker 1: for if you include English. So learning everything else, whether
Speaker 1: Russian or Check, is by rote. It's memorizing sounds. You
Speaker 1: have to sound authentic and you also have to memorize
Speaker 1: what everyone else is saying. So it's just very time
Speaker 1: when you don't know the language you memorize by rope.
Speaker 1: Do you actually know what the words say? Or you
Speaker 1: just you know what the sound is? You have to
Speaker 1: learn it all. Why is that you think opera has
Speaker 1: declining attendance, as does all classical music, Well I would
Speaker 1: have I would have tried to explain that, but actually
Speaker 1: attendances down a major sports arenas as well. I do
Speaker 1: think there is so much available to people for entertainment
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is digital, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it is on television that people buy and large.
Speaker 1: I mean, I see this with young people around me.
Speaker 1: They just they don't want to spend the money. They
Speaker 1: don't go out. The other thing I want to say
Speaker 1: is when I moved to New York, there were only
Speaker 1: a few venues there were There were theaters on Broadway,
Speaker 1: and there were a few classical music venues, a couple
Speaker 1: of dance venues. That was it. Now there's a performing
Speaker 1: arts center every other block. So I'm opening the Shed,
Speaker 1: which is opening it a year from now. Spectacular. UM.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinary architecture, an extraordinary opportunity to create only new work. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm thrilled to be participating in the first piece
Speaker 1: that they're going to present. So opera is something that
Speaker 1: you are going to continue doing. There was a story
Speaker 1: once in the New York Times that said, you were
Speaker 1: going to finish your career at the Met at a
Speaker 1: certain point in two thousand seventeen, but you're still doing
Speaker 1: operas that right, right? I mean, that was you know,
Speaker 1: that was really unfair. That was the headline, you know,
Speaker 1: that was trying to draw attention. So when you do today,
Speaker 1: you do opera, you're doing other times of music. I
Speaker 1: mostly concertise, and that's what I've been doing for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I'd say I spent eight percent of my time on
Speaker 1: the concert stage, which enables me to get around the world.
Speaker 1: I love creating the Renee Fleming show, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: I think the audience will enjoy the most, a mixture
Speaker 1: usually of repertoire UH and I and I love meeting
Speaker 1: new audiences and having that one on one communication. I'm
Speaker 1: working on a new piece for the Met. Actually that
Speaker 1: will be this can't be announced yet, but it's really
Speaker 1: exciting to contemplate. So I'm going to go I think
Speaker 1: back to the Met and but but frankly, you know,
Speaker 1: and I have another major theatrical project after the Shed,
Speaker 1: so I didn't even know that I would be doing
Speaker 1: this much theater. So you're singing the songs that won
Speaker 1: the Academy Award, Yes, exactly. Um, well, Alexander displat one
Speaker 1: for the music in general, but the shape of Water,
Speaker 1: of this beautiful song. It was in the credits and
Speaker 1: halfway through the film as well. You never know just
Speaker 1: so much famous UH sopranos are sometimes labeled as divas
Speaker 1: or prima donnas Maria Alice being a good example of that. Um,
Speaker 1: but you don't have that reputation, So how did you
Speaker 1: avoid that reputation? Gosh, you know, I just wish I
Speaker 1: could have called I just wanted to nurture that a
Speaker 1: little bit so I could be the subject of dinner conversations.
Speaker 1: And I just couldn't do it. I've never been good
Speaker 1: at it. But in other words, uh, the ego that's
Speaker 1: involved with being a great soprano obviously gets to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I think it comes out of anxiety.
Speaker 1: It comes from it's a certain kind of a huge
Speaker 1: anxiety about performance pressure and and and let's not diminish
Speaker 1: what performance pressure means. It is really challenging and some people,
Speaker 1: you know, if you make it to the top, even
Speaker 1: staying at the top is terribly difficult. So, UM, I
Speaker 1: have internalized the pressure that I have felt over the years.
Speaker 1: And that's not really great yet either, because it's not
Speaker 1: fun to feel like that. But other people externalize it
Speaker 1: and they take it out on whoever is around them,
Speaker 1: and somehow that's how that happens. And then they go
Speaker 1: on stage and they're grade now because of the pressure
Speaker 1: of being an opera singer. Sometimes you need an outlet,
Speaker 1: and what did you do for an outlet? I am
Speaker 1: a culture fanatic, I am, and I am also um
Speaker 1: fascinated by I want to learn. I'm a lifelong learner. Um,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to museums in theater. I love, absolutely
Speaker 1: love theater. Uh. And I love beauty and nature very much.
Speaker 1: So I'm enjoying nurturing young talent and I'll hope to
Speaker 1: continue doing that in a more meaningful way in the future.
Speaker 1: You're also working with n I H and Francis Collins
Speaker 1: ahead of it to try to show that actually music
Speaker 1: can help people get healthier. Can you explain that? So? Um?
Speaker 1: I basically met Francis Collins as the director of the
Speaker 1: National Institutes of Health at a dinner party, an amazing
Speaker 1: dinner party with Justices Scalia Ginsburg and Kennedy. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh he was we were we had to sing along.
Speaker 1: When you're doing a thing along, isn't everybody else intimidated?
Speaker 1: You're not exactly the average sing along. Yeah. We were
Speaker 1: kind of singing this land as your land. There were
Speaker 1: songs that everybody knew and they loved it. And I
Speaker 1: said to Frances at some point in the evening, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's so much neuroscience about music, Um, what
Speaker 1: would you think about collaborating with the Kennedy Center. And
Speaker 1: he said, yes, let's let's look into that. And it's
Speaker 1: turned into this really extraordinary project. It's about drawing attention
Speaker 1: to the power of music. The neuroscience is new, it's
Speaker 1: relatively new and becoming more widely known. But how it
Speaker 1: helps childhood, in childhood development, how it helps with so
Speaker 1: many therapies for autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, UM for veterans. I
Speaker 1: gave fourteen presentations in the last six months around the
Speaker 1: country where I sing UM sharing the kind of the
Speaker 1: all of the knowledge that I'm gaining in a hopefully
Speaker 1: entertaining way. So when UM, people come up to you
Speaker 1: young performers to say I want to be a famous
Speaker 1: opera singer, what is the advice you give them? Well,
Speaker 1: I really advised people first and foremost not to accept
Speaker 1: any limitations. Now you not only have to sing fabulously,
Speaker 1: have a super technique and really be able to trust
Speaker 1: your voice. You have to look fabulous, look like the
Speaker 1: character you're playing, and act amazingly well. And a lot
Speaker 1: of this has developed since I started singing, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure the demands will be even more in the future.
Speaker 1: So if I wanted to learn how to be an
Speaker 1: opera singer, it's late. I guess in life you have
Speaker 1: to learn earlier. You can't start late in life, right,
Speaker 1: typically not typically? And today when you go to master
Speaker 1: classes you teach people, Um, do you ever see anybody
Speaker 1: you think this person really is talented? Or you oh, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I absolutely. You know, there are a lot of diamonds
Speaker 1: in the rough out there. And we also say the
Speaker 1: greatest singers in the world probably don't even know they
Speaker 1: have a voice. Well okay, so so David, you know,
Speaker 1: we could work on it a little bit and see
Speaker 1: just check out the town I have. Every time I
Speaker 1: have ever sung, people say you are completely tone deaf.
Speaker 1: So I don't think I have the skill. So if
Speaker 1: you had to pay to watch opera, who would you
Speaker 1: to pay to listen to? Who are the great opera
Speaker 1: male and female performers that you would have paid to hear?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I mean I would have loved to have
Speaker 1: heard Maria Collis because of her musicianship. I mean I
Speaker 1: still go to her records all the time. Um, Victoria
Speaker 1: las Anels. I don't think I ever heard her sing live.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of her singing Schwartzkopf. I did
Speaker 1: a masterclass with her, but I never heard her sing live.
Speaker 1: So there have been great history. We belong to a tapestry.
Speaker 1: Um that is really historic, and I love that connection
Speaker 1: to what's come before, and I love celebrating that. And
Speaker 1: you know, that's something we lose in our culture right
Speaker 1: now because of this connection to to to social media
Speaker 1: and to the here and now in the momentary. This
Speaker 1: idea that you become really wonderful. It's something that and
Speaker 1: you learn about what people have done before you. You
Speaker 1: have two daughters today want to be singers. They're wonderful singers. Um.
Speaker 1: They know too much, so they neither of them want
Speaker 1: to pursue singing. So again they the lifestyle is challenging.
Speaker 1: So I am on the road literally every three days,
Speaker 1: I'm on a plane. Well, when your daughters were younger,
Speaker 1: you've written the fact that you would pack them up
Speaker 1: and take them on the road with you and get
Speaker 1: tutors or other than that. Complicated, yeah, but worth it,
Speaker 1: totally worth it. I really believe that their home was
Speaker 1: with me that their home was with the people who
Speaker 1: loved them, and and that's worked out well. They've turned
Speaker 1: into fabulous young women. So if you had the chance
Speaker 1: to sing one opera, only one more opera, for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life, what opera would you want to be?
Speaker 1: Because there one of rosen Cavalier was absolutely my favorite.
Speaker 1: The most interesting woman, the most complex. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: just such a three dimensional woman, which you don't find
Speaker 1: very much. If me too is an issue, most of
Speaker 1: what we do. An opera would not be performed because
Speaker 1: women are victimized right and left. An opera because it's
Speaker 1: a it's an historic art form. So um, that's why
Speaker 1: the marshal in who has power, who has even though
Speaker 1: she's she's complex, she is much more interesting. You've done
Speaker 1: Broadway opera, um, classical music as or something you haven't
Speaker 1: done that you would like to do. Gosh, you know what, David,
Speaker 1: I'm it's already so much richer than I ever could
Speaker 1: have imagined. If you told me that I would be
Speaker 1: in a musical on Broadway, I would have said unlikely, unlikely.
Speaker 1: So I don't think I have a wish list. What
Speaker 1: I do have is an open mind and a and
Speaker 1: a belief in the future. I absolutely believe that things
Speaker 1: come to us if we work hard and we're dedicated,
Speaker 1: and we love what we're doing, we're passionate. When you're
Speaker 1: an opera singer, you can't yell at anybody or yell
Speaker 1: anything because you could ruin your voice. Do you ever
Speaker 1: worry about that? Or you just don't worry about that.
Speaker 1: I made that mistake once. Uh, one of my daughter's
Speaker 1: was upstairs and I shout in a moment, I shouted
Speaker 1: at her, and I felt it. I went, Oh, I
Speaker 1: had to cancel three performances at the met in a
Speaker 1: production that was that was built for me. So that
Speaker 1: was really unfortunate. So like in my case, I'm not
Speaker 1: a good singer, as I mentioned I have. I'm completely
Speaker 1: tone deaf. But you know I can sing in the
Speaker 1: shower and nobody objects. So can an opera singer sing
Speaker 1: in the shower. That's not possible. Oh it's great to
Speaker 1: sing in the shower. It's a good place to warm up.
Speaker 1: You have all that moisture. You know you're in fact,
Speaker 1: you might become a better singer by singing in this
Speaker 1: Maybe that I mean as your practice. That more I
Speaker 1: think about that the thing that you're most proud of
Speaker 1: having achieved in your life, other than let's say, raising
Speaker 1: two very talented young women your daughters. What would you
Speaker 1: say your your most achieved that's given you most pride?
Speaker 1: Is it coming from very modest circumstances to becoming one
Speaker 1: of the most famous people in the world in the
Speaker 1: opera world, or what would you say it is? Well,
Speaker 1: I do share with you this extraordinary wonder at the
Speaker 1: realm of possibilities that we have as Americans because, um,
Speaker 1: some of my relatives were literally coal miners in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And I have sat next to Prince Charles and next
Speaker 1: to the King of Sweden at dinner parties and at
Speaker 1: various performances, and I always stop and say, isn't this amazing?
Speaker 1: And literally in two generations that I have this, this
Speaker 1: ability to travel the world and experience every place I
Speaker 1: go um at the most extraordinary level. And the legacy
Speaker 1: that you would like people to um think about you,
Speaker 1: let's say, twenty years from now, when you people look back,
Speaker 1: I think I really expanded the possibilities for the singers
Speaker 1: who came after me by singing in multiple genre, by
Speaker 1: singing jazz, by singing, making a rock album, now singing
Speaker 1: in music theater. Um. When I started, people discouraged that
Speaker 1: very heavily. They said, no, you're going to ruin your legacy.
Speaker 1: You will, um, you, you, you will ruin the way
Speaker 1: in which you're viewed critically. You must not step out
Speaker 1: of the box. In fact, the more specialized you are,
Speaker 1: the better. And I just thought, I, I'm too curious,
Speaker 1: I want to try new things, So I just ignored
Speaker 1: that advice. When you're an opera, when you go out
Speaker 1: for a boutt can go on for ten minutes, twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: How long do you go out before you realize it's
Speaker 1: finally time to leave the stage and bowing and opera
Speaker 1: is an art form unto itself. It's another performance, and
Speaker 1: some people do it extremely well, and the audience loves it.
Speaker 1: They love it, you know, I sort of forced. I
Speaker 1: had friends who would yell at me through my whole career.
Speaker 1: Stay on stage. The audience wants to show you their love,
Speaker 1: their appreciation. So um, it didn't come supernaturally to me.