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SCMP Reporter

Renee Fleming in Concert

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

Hong Kong Cultural Centre  Concert Hall

Reviewed: Mar 31

Renee Fleming  is a singer who can communicate at a very high level with an audience, and share her obvious passion and love for singing. She's the epitome of all  the good things a so-called diva  can be. She's a gracious, prepared, skilled musician with a strong voice and quick mind.

In two concerts  during the weekend, Fleming (below) sang   a Richard Strauss programme (with an encore of Somewhere Over the Rainbow)  that played to her vocal and linguistic skills.

The lyric soprano studied extensively in Germany  and speaks fluent German. This language skill was on display as she interpreted Strauss' Four Last Songs and three  of his  better known compositions:  Zueignung,   Morgen! and  Caecilie. The Four Last Songs were Strauss' final   works before his death and showed a tremendous amount of depth and loving attention to the word and vocal line.

The orchestral accompaniment, under  David Atherton,  was a beautiful progression of style and  ended poignantly with  At Sunset, a song that questions if death is near.

Fleming's use of vocal artistry, shadings, inflections of words and passion  were obvious and from the heart.   Her encore  was sung with a new orchestral arrangement in a light jazz style.  Fleming has studied jazz  and she showed great freedom and tastefulness in the genre, and the audience was enchanted.

Multiple curtain calls attested  to the fact that she could have continued to sing  and everyone would have stayed,  enraptured,  by a true diva.



Renee Fleming in Concert