Renée Fleming - I Want Magic!

On this disc, American soprano Renée Fleming–she of "The Beautiful Voice," as her last solo outing, reviewed by me in Fanfare 21:6, was justifiably titled–applies her vocal magic to an up-to-the-minute selection of 11 arias from nine American operas; the title track, "I Want Magic!," is from André Previn's recently premiered A Streetcar Named Desire. As the notes tell us, the soprano's aim here was twofold: to record a broadly representative selection from the American operatic stage, and to pay tribute to some of her illustrious predecessors in this music, including Phyllis Curtin (Susannah), Leontyne Price (Bess), Beverly Sills (Baby Doe), Barbara Cook (Cunegonde in Candide), Eleanor Steber (Vanessa), Judith Raskin (Anne Trulove in The Rake's Progress), and Judith Blegen (Monica in The Medium). Fleming does not erase memories of her predecessors; nor would she want to. When Phyllis Curtin's Susannah imagines what's "way beyond them mountains" in "Ain't it a pretty night!," she makes you wonder and yearn with her, something Fleming doesn't really achieve. Barbara Cook's voice is of course entirely different from Fleming's, but Cook's inflections in "Glitter and Be Gay" remain every bit as priceless as the jewels Cunegonde describes. Where Leontyne Price delivers a profoundly elemental "Summertime," Fleming can seem sometimes self-indulgent. And the arias from Wuthering Heights and Streetcar (the latter recorded before Fleming created her role onstage) feel dramatically unformed. Lack of context may be a factor: It should be interesting to hear the Streetcar number in the complete "live" recording due from Deutsche Grammophon.

But boy does Fleming make her way around all of this music, offering her trademark lush, seamless vocalism from beginning to end. Her renditions of Baby Doe's "Letter Aria"–with high Ds that are not only fully comfortable but properly integrated into the musical line–and Anne Trulove's aria from The Rake's Progress are particularly convincing. (Incidentally, Sills's 1976 recording of Baby Doe is finally due for release by Deutsche Grammophon this spring, now that legal complications arising from the loss of the original recording contracts have been sorted out.) And while she may not erase those memories of Barbara Cook, Fleming clearly has a terrific time with her grandly virtuosic approach to "Glitter and Be Gay," where the detail provided by James Levine's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra–listen, for example, to the woodwind commentary at "Enough, enough. . . "–adds immeasurably to the proceedings. In fact, Levine and his extraordinary ensemble add immeasurably to the proceedings throughout.

1. I have dreamt
Composer: Bernard Herrmann, Lucille Fletcher
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


2. The Letter Song
Composer: Douglas Moore, John LaTouche
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


3. Monica's Waltz
Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


4. Summertime
Composer: George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward, DuBose Heyward
Conductor: James Levine, Teddy Swarrer
As performed by: New York Voices, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


5. "My man's gone now"
Composer: George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward, DuBose Heyward
Conductor: James Levine, Teddy Swarrer
As performed by: New York Voices, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


6. Glitter and be gay
Composer: Leonard Bernstein
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


7. Ain't it a pretty night?
Composer: Carlisle Floyd
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


8. The trees on the mountain
Composer: Carlisle Floyd
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


9. "No word from Tom"
Composer: Wystan Hugh Auden, Chester Kallman, Igor Stravinsky
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


10. He has come…do not utter a word, Anatol
Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra


11. I want magic
Composer: André Previn, Tennessee Williams
Conductor: James Levine
As performed by: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra