
Acting
Renée Fleming
Born 1959-02-14 · Indiana, Pennsylvania, USA
Renée Lynn Fleming (born February 14, 1959) is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming would be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors, which she received in December 2023. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. On April 9, 2024, Penguin Random House published Fleming's anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, a collection of essays about the health benefits of music and the arts, by scientists from leading research institutions, practitioners, educators, arts leaders, musicians, artists and writers. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice. She has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. A significant portion of her career has been the performance of new music, including world premieres of operas, concert pieces, and songs composed for her by André Previn, Caroline Shaw, Kevin Puts, Anders Hillborg, Nico Muhly, Henri Dutilleux, Brad Mehldau, and Wayne Shorter. In 2008, Fleming became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline a season opening night gala. Conductor Sir Georg Solti said of Fleming: "In my long life, I have met maybe two sopranos with this quality of singing; the other was Renata Tebaldi." Beyond opera, Fleming has sung and recorded lieder, chansons, jazz, musical theatre, and indie rock, and she has performed with a wide range of artists, including Luciano Pavarotti, Lou Reed, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Andrea Bocelli, Sting and John Prine. A 2018 Tony Award nominee, Fleming has acted on Broadway and in theatrical productions in London, Los Angeles and Chicago. Fleming has also recorded songs for the soundtracks of several major films, two of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture (The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King). Fleming has made numerous television appearances, and she is the only classical singer to have performed the U.S. National Anthem at the Super Bowl. Fleming has also become a frequent public speaker about the impact of music on health and neuroscience, winning a Research!America Award for her advocacy in this field. Fleming was born on February 14, 1959, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the daughter of two music teachers, and grew up in Churchville, New York. She has great-grandparents who were born in Prague and later emigrated to the US. Fleming attended Churchville-Chili High School. ... Source: Article "Renée Fleming" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Acting credits
NRRepertoire Modest Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain; Antonín Dvořák: Song to the Moon from “Rusalka”, Op. 114; Aram Chatschaturjan: Adagio from “Spartacus”; Richard Strauss: Final Scene from “Capriccio”, Op. 85; Richard Wagner: Overture to “Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen”; E. W. Korngold: Mariettas Lied from “Die tote Stadt”; Richard Strauss: Zueignung, Op. 10 No. 1; Sir Edward Elgar: Salut d’amour; Giacomo Puccini: Donde lieta uscì from “La bohème”; Tu che di gel sei cinta from “Turandot”; Ruggero Leoncavallo: Musette svaria sulla bocca viva from “La bohème”; Mimì Pinson, la biondinetta from “La bohème”; Piotr Tchaikovsky: “Romeo and Juliet” (Fantasy Overture)
Waldbühne 2010 | An Evening with Renée Fleming
2010
6.417-year-old Lisa feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in causing a traffic accident that claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right, she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and, most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course with the realities and compromises of the adult world.
Margaret
2011
Internationally acclaimed American soprano Renee Fleming and British actress Claire Bloom join with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in a magnificent Christmas celebration featuring some of the season's most beloved songs. Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is a holiday tradition the entire family will enjoy.
2005 - Renee Fleming & Claire Bloom
2005
NRLive 2001 recording at the Bastille opera in Paris in a production for l'Opéra de Paris by Gilbert Deflo. High praise was given to the historical costumes by William Orlando, the minimal décor, the sophisticated lighting as well as the musical excellence of the performers. It was also due to the charisma of Renée Fleming; she confessed in an interview, "I think Manon is my favorite role. I love French music, it is so elegant and delicate stylistically. It has both dramatic and lyrical elements." Marcelo Alvarez was thought brilliant in the role of the Chevalier des Grieux, and among the other artists were Jean-Luc Chaignaud as Lescaut, Alain Vernhes as the Comte des Grieux and Michel Sénéchal as Guillot de Morfontaine. The choir and orchestra of l'Opéra de Paris were conducted by Jesús López-Cobos.
Manon
2001
4.6A public celebration of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America at the Lincoln Memorial and the National Mall in Washington D.C., on January 18, 2009.
We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial
2009
10.0Renee Fleming stars in Dvorak's three-act opera based on two fairy-tales which tells the story of a water-nymph called Rusalka (Fleming), who wishes she was human, after falling in love with a mortal.
Rusalka
2002
4.2A biopic of Alma Mahler, the wife of composer Gustav Mahler (as well as Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel), and the mistress of Oskar Kokoschka.
Bride of the Wind
2001
10.0Iconic artist and theater director Robert Wilson has created a series of video portraits of celebrities, ordinary people and animals called "VOOM Portraits." Known for his glacier-paced theatrical productions with Tom Waits and Lou Reed, Wilson's now bringing his aesthetic to a video format. The recent developments in HD technology have allowed Wilson to create something like a precise hybrid of still photography and motion pictures. Actors such as Brad Pitt (as a crazy person on the streets in the rain), Isabelle Huppert (as Greta Garbo), Steve Buscemi (as a mad butcher chewing gum on a variety show), Robert Downey Jr. (as a dreaming corpse in a Rembrandt painting), and Winona Ryder (as Winnie, the main female character in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, buried up to her neck in sand) were asked to “think of nothing" and move slowly and steadily to collaborate in Wilson's vision of who they might be.
Voom Portraits
2007
NRSECRET SONG tells the riveting story of the love affair behind the creation of one of the greatest works of 20th-century music- Alban Berg's Lyric Suite. Featuring performances by Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, and blending documentary with re-enactments, the film explores the mysterious connection between life and art.
Secret Song
2019
8.5Live from Glyndebourne 1994. The first production to be filmed Live in Glyndebourne´s new opera house May 1994. The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single “day of madness” in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. This follows the Count trying to obtain favours from Susanna, Figaro’s bride to be, under the nose of the Countess.
The Marriage of Figaro
1994
7.12016 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Hieronymus Bosch. It is almost the only information about the artist of The Garden of Earthly Delights that we can put a precise date to. Bosch, the garden of dreams is a film about his most important painting and one of the most iconic paintings in the world: The Garden of Earthly Delights.
Bosch: The Garden of Dreams
2016
8.0Verdi’s IL TROVATORE again storms the Met stage in a star-studded, anvil-wielding cast , including Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Marcelo Álvarez sings Manrico, the troubadour of the title. The story is well-known already: The gypsy Azucena has harbored a grudge for thirty years, but she is about to have revenge at last. Meanwhile, her son Manrico is in love with Leonora, but so is his arch-enemy, the Count Di Luna. A pot-boiler, where every tune is a hit.
The Metropolitan Opera: Il Trovatore
2011
NRRecorded at Germany's Mainz Cathedral, this inspirational concert video features the glorious voice of opera star Renee Fleming, who's regarded as "the gold standard of soprano sound." With maestro Trevor Pinnock conducting, Fleming performs "Ave Maria," "Laudate Dominum" (from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Mass in C minor), "Adeste Fidelis," "Rejoice Greatly" (from George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Messiah") and "O Holy Night."
Renee Fleming: Sacred Songs
2006
NRA kaleidoscopic collection of musical genres, Myths and Hymns explores the nature of faith and longing in a secular world, with 23 short musical films illuminating the search for answers through Flight, Work, Love, and Faith.
Myths and Hymns
2021
7.5What happened to Figaro and his friends after the events told in Rossini’s and Mozart’s operas? One possible sequel is told in John Corigliano’s “grand opera buffa” The Ghosts of Versailles—an uproariously funny and deeply moving work inspired by Beaumarchais’s third Figaro play, La Mère Coupable, and commissioned by the Met to celebrate its 100th anniversary. This telecast captures its world premiere run, conducted by James Levine. Håkan Hagegård is Beaumarchais, Figaro’s creator, who is deeply in love with Marie Antoinette (Teresa Stratas in a heart-searing performance) and determined to rewrite history and save her from the guillotine. A young Renée Fleming, at the beginning of her international career, sings the unfaithful Rosina. Gino Quilico is the wily Figaro who tries to take matters in his own hands, and Marilyn Horne stops the show as the exotic entertainer Samira.
The Ghosts of Versailles
1992
8.2In the presence of HM the Queen and the royal family, an array of stars from the last sixty years of rock, pop and classical music perform on a spectacular stage built around the Queen Victoria Memorial, right in front of Buckingham Palace. Hit songs and show-stopping performances are promised, with hosts including Rob Brydon, Miranda Hart, Lenny Henry and Lee Mack. Proceedings conclude with HM the Queen lighting the National Beacon.
The Diamond Jubilee Concert 2012
2012
10.0Echoing "An American Pageant for the Arts," the 1962 event conducted by Leonard Bernstein, this special celebration and re-launch of live, in-person performing arts in America will be hosted by six-time Tony Award® winner Audra McDonald with special guest Caroline Kennedy and feature the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO).
The Kennedy Center at 50
2021
4.0The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. This follows the Count trying to obtain favours from Susanna, Figaro's bride to be, under the nose of the Countess.
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro
1994
6.3Renée Fleming lights up the Met stage as Hanna Glawari, the fabulously wealthy widow of the title in Lehár’s beloved operetta, set in Paris and seen in a glittering production directed and choreographed by Broadway’s Susan Stroman. Nathan Gunn is Danilo, Hanna’s former flame, who is supposed to woo and marry her in order to keep her fortune in their home country of Pontevedro. Kelli O’Hara sings Valencienne, the flirtatious young wife of the Pontevedrian ambassador in Paris, Baron Zeta, played by Thomas Allen, and Alek Shrader is her suitor, Camille. Andrew Davis conducts the waltz-rich score, and the new English translation is by Jeremy Sams.
The Metropolitan Opera: The Merry Widow
2015
8.0No synopsis available yet.
Sommernachtskonzert 2017
2017
NRFlemings voice might have been made for Ariadne and she achieved a great personal triumph in this production: The chief glory of the evening was hearing Renee Fleming, the Straussian soprano par excellence, making her role debut as Ariadne… As the possessor of what is, possibly, the most beautiful soprano voice in the world, she put her vocal treasures in the service of an empathic, nuanced interpretation of the role. From the creamy top, through a rich, warm middle, to the bewitching, darker colours of her lower register, Fleming poured her magnificent sound into Strausss enchanting melodic arcs, animating the sadness, vulnerability, and desire of the bereft princess...
Richard Strauss - Ariadne Auf Naxos
2012
NRThe pain of unrequited love is portrayed unforgettably by two of today’s greatest stars. Renée Fleming is musically and dramatically radiant as the shy Tatiana, who falls in love with the worldly Onegin, played with devastating charisma by Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Their mesmerizing vocalism and chemistry explode in one of opera’s most heartbreaking final scenes. With Valery Gergiev on the podium conducting Tchaikovsky’s passionate score, this performance is one for the ages.
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
2007
8.5Michael Mayer’s acclaimed production, first seen in the 2012–13 season, sets the action of Verdi’s masterpiece in 1960 Las Vegas—a neon-lit world ruled by money and ruthless, powerful men. Piotr Beczała is the Duke, a popular entertainer and casino owner who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Željko Lučić sings Rigoletto, his sidekick and comedian, and Diana Damrau is Rigoletto’s innocent daughter, Gilda. When she is seduced by the Duke, Rigoletto sets out on a tragic course of murderous revenge. Štefan Kocán is the assassin Sparafucile and Michele Mariotti conducts.
The Metropolitan Opera: Rigoletto
2013
Documentary about female opera stars.
Faszinierende Frauen - Faszinierende Stimmen
2009