Renee Flemming

singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Most recently, Fleming has been starring in the Broadway production of Carousel in her Tony nominated role as Nettie Fowler. She recently sat down with Carlisle Group co founder David Rubenstein. They spoke on David Rubinstein's Bloomberg television program Peer to Peer Conversations. You are performing in Carousel, which is not an opera, It's a Broadway play. Why are you doing that and not opera? I just thought, wow, it would be really

exciting to do something new. I always love doing new things. It's just been an extraordinary experience. I'm the kind of person that if I were to say no for any number of reasons, I would always wonder, what if and so rather than wondering, I typically jump in so opera because usually two or three nights a week, perhaps if you're doing a show, and let's say the Metropolitan, but you're now doing eight shows a week. So just you touched on the actual huge difference, right, So you strain

your voice doing eight shows a week? Is that hurt you if you're gonna go do opera later? It wasn't that long ago really that people were unamplified on Broadway and they sang by in large closer to the way that I do because of the drama. They absolutely put amplification into every theater now and that makes all the difference in the world. So on the opera stage, our bodies are the amplifiers. We have to create enough sound to be heard over an orchestra chorus and into the

back of a large hall on Broadway. The really the mechanism of microphones and amplification and a really great sound is they do that work for us and we can kind of take not take it easy, per se, but not use power. So explain for people may not be familiar with this. In opera, there's no amplification allowed. You can't use microphone or anything like that. Why is that?

Do you know? It's it's the art form is old, it's it's it's been that way always, And frankly, I believe that the way we're trained enables us to be heard, and the the individual quality that we have is so powerful and beautiful, actually because we all sound quite different. When Oscar Hammers sign and Richard Rogers wrote the play and the music for Carousel, they knew at the time that some of the lyrics were complicated and there was

a bit of spousal abuse. And you have concerns about that, I actually think you know, and most of opera and most of history really Shakespeare also looked at so many of these things. I think it's worth, um portraying these aspects of the human condition, of human experience, so that we can talk about it, so that we can air it. It's important to give people a platform to say I

had a bad experience. UM, no one should. Who should ever come to an audience and feel taken unawares, I think, and be be hurt by something, but we should be affected by it. You sing one of the highlights of the show, it's the song at the end, And what is that song that is so well known that you've sung before about I guess walking alone, So You'll never walk alone is one of the great iconic songs. It's

a universal statement about hope and about resilience. And in this piece, it's my character Nettie sings it to Julie Justice Billy has died, and um, it's very moving in context. And I've sung it a lot before. I sing it for the nine eleven memorial a year after nine eleven in Washington, and I've sung it all through the years. Um, it's something that people absolutely love. Let's talk about how you became a very famous soprano, perhaps the most famous in the world. Um, you grew up in New York.

To repeat that, I loved it, so I love that, David's true. Just keep saying that, thank you. So you grew up in upstate New York, right, and your parents were music teachers. Yes, So did they always say to you you should grow up to be a great opera singer or they never bothered you to No, No, They're shocked. They were absolutely shocked. They said, get get a teaching degree, and you know you're not going to be a forget about that. It's just too impossible. So you know, you

can imagine their surprise. My mother is still teaching voice. She's not She loves it. She's very passionate about teaching. Uh. And I you know, it's it's step by step, it's it takes an incredible amount of drive, I think, and um and resilience again because you know, it's it's hugely competitive. Well, when you were a little girl, you were singing in many different plays. I guess school plays and so forth. I did musicals. I sang a lot of musical and

never sang a musical again until now. So when you apply to college, you wanted to go to a school that had a very good music program, and you applied to Oberlin and you got into Berlin, but your parents really couldn't afford for you to go there, So you went to State University in post Yes, and it turned out that was a pretty good thing for you because they had a very good school of music. Is that right.

That's and a great voice teacher. So that and that's really the one of the key components for success is having someone who can help you develop your voice. And it's not easy. It's a very individual when you think about it. Every instrument is different. Um, it's internal the voice, and it requires for each bone structure and each kind of physical structure a different set of of of rules

for technique. So when you went there, you realize you were probably better than the average person, and you began to sing a little bit professionally, but you did some jazz singing as well. You weren't necessary an opera singer. Did you like jazz more than opera? I'm still a jazz fanatic. I listened to it a lot, you know, I've been biking on the river, and that's that's how I distress. And I listened to a lot of my favorite performers. Uh so, yeah, I still really love that.

But I think classical for me it was a better fit for my temperament. I was shy um. I preferred to be in the practice room kind of unlocking and working on the process of learning how to sing. I loved that as opposed to being an extrovert and a performer. I had to learn that. When did you realize that you actually were good enough to maybe be a professional singer? I just kept going along, So it wasn't as if I made a decision. I think when I had the

Fulbright scholarship. That was a big journey point for me to be in Europe, to be steeped in a foreign language and studying. I loved that. You begin to prepare UH to maybe an opera career. How did you actually break through? You know, you finally somebody has to take a chance. You know, you have to have one person, one impersario who says, I don't care what other people sink. I like this soprano and I'm going to give her a break. And your first break was in Houston. And

how did that come about? Somebody called you and said, somebody got sick and can you come and perform exactly what I had audition for the program for the studio, the Young Artist program. A few months later they called and said, we had a cancelation singing opera. You sing from the chess more and not from the uh throat, So we use an optimal breath um expansion sort of intake, and then support. Support is really a key thing if that optimizes the the amount of sound you can make

without using pressure, without actually tiring yourself. So somebody can go to a sports event and shout and their horse the next day you hear or you say, were you at a rock concert? Where you at a sports event? Where were you? Were you out dancing? You know that someone has heard their voice, will sing for three hours. Um, just as extreme in terms of how we're using our voice and the next day we can do it again. When you're singing opera and you don't know the language,

is that very difficult? Well? I sing in about eight eight nine languages, you know, if you include Lord of the Rings, and I only speak really three of them. Um, for if you include English. So learning everything else, whether Russian or Check, is by rote. It's memorizing sounds. You have to sound authentic and you also have to memorize what everyone else is saying. So it's just very time when you don't know the language you memorize by rope. Do you actually know what the words say? Or you

just you know what the sound is? You have to learn it all. Why is that you think opera has declining attendance, as does all classical music, Well I would have I would have tried to explain that, but actually attendances down a major sports arenas as well. I do think there is so much available to people for entertainment and a lot of it is digital, and a lot of it is on television that people buy and large. I mean, I see this with young people around me.

They just they don't want to spend the money. They don't go out. The other thing I want to say is when I moved to New York, there were only a few venues there were There were theaters on Broadway, and there were a few classical music venues, a couple of dance venues. That was it. Now there's a performing arts center every other block. So I'm opening the Shed, which is opening it a year from now. Spectacular. UM.

It's extraordinary architecture, an extraordinary opportunity to create only new work. UM. And I'm thrilled to be participating in the first piece that they're going to present. So opera is something that you are going to continue doing. There was a story once in the New York Times that said, you were going to finish your career at the Met at a certain point in two thousand seventeen, but you're still doing operas that right, right? I mean, that was you know,

that was really unfair. That was the headline, you know, that was trying to draw attention. So when you do today, you do opera, you're doing other times of music. I mostly concertise, and that's what I've been doing for fifteen years. I'd say I spent eight percent of my time on the concert stage, which enables me to get around the world. I love creating the Renee Fleming show, whatever it is, I think the audience will enjoy the most, a mixture usually of repertoire UH and I and I love meeting

new audiences and having that one on one communication. I'm working on a new piece for the Met. Actually that will be this can't be announced yet, but it's really exciting to contemplate. So I'm going to go I think back to the Met and but but frankly, you know, and I have another major theatrical project after the Shed, so I didn't even know that I would be doing this much theater. So you're singing the songs that won

the Academy Award, Yes, exactly. Um, well, Alexander displat one for the music in general, but the shape of Water, of this beautiful song. It was in the credits and halfway through the film as well. You never know just so much famous UH sopranos are sometimes labeled as divas or prima donnas Maria Alice being a good example of that. Um, but you don't have that reputation, So how did you

avoid that reputation? Gosh, you know, I just wish I could have called I just wanted to nurture that a little bit so I could be the subject of dinner conversations. And I just couldn't do it. I've never been good at it. But in other words, uh, the ego that's involved with being a great soprano obviously gets to a lot of people. I think it comes out of anxiety. It comes from it's a certain kind of a huge anxiety about performance pressure and and and let's not diminish

what performance pressure means. It is really challenging and some people, you know, if you make it to the top, even staying at the top is terribly difficult. So, UM, I have internalized the pressure that I have felt over the years. And that's not really great yet either, because it's not fun to feel like that. But other people externalize it and they take it out on whoever is around them,

and somehow that's how that happens. And then they go on stage and they're grade now because of the pressure of being an opera singer. Sometimes you need an outlet, and what did you do for an outlet? I am a culture fanatic, I am, and I am also um fascinated by I want to learn. I'm a lifelong learner. Um, so I'm going to museums in theater. I love, absolutely love theater. Uh. And I love beauty and nature very much.

So I'm enjoying nurturing young talent and I'll hope to continue doing that in a more meaningful way in the future. You're also working with n I H and Francis Collins ahead of it to try to show that actually music can help people get healthier. Can you explain that? So? Um? I basically met Francis Collins as the director of the National Institutes of Health at a dinner party, an amazing dinner party with Justices Scalia Ginsburg and Kennedy. Uh and uh he was we were we had to sing along.

When you're doing a thing along, isn't everybody else intimidated? You're not exactly the average sing along. Yeah. We were kind of singing this land as your land. There were songs that everybody knew and they loved it. And I said to Frances at some point in the evening, I said, you know, there's so much neuroscience about music, Um, what would you think about collaborating with the Kennedy Center. And he said, yes, let's let's look into that. And it's

turned into this really extraordinary project. It's about drawing attention to the power of music. The neuroscience is new, it's relatively new and becoming more widely known. But how it helps childhood, in childhood development, how it helps with so many therapies for autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, UM for veterans. I gave fourteen presentations in the last six months around the country where I sing UM sharing the kind of the all of the knowledge that I'm gaining in a hopefully

entertaining way. So when UM, people come up to you young performers to say I want to be a famous opera singer, what is the advice you give them? Well, I really advised people first and foremost not to accept any limitations. Now you not only have to sing fabulously, have a super technique and really be able to trust your voice. You have to look fabulous, look like the

character you're playing, and act amazingly well. And a lot of this has developed since I started singing, and I'm sure the demands will be even more in the future. So if I wanted to learn how to be an opera singer, it's late. I guess in life you have to learn earlier. You can't start late in life, right, typically not typically? And today when you go to master classes you teach people, Um, do you ever see anybody you think this person really is talented? Or you oh, yeah, absolutely,

I absolutely. You know, there are a lot of diamonds in the rough out there. And we also say the greatest singers in the world probably don't even know they have a voice. Well okay, so so David, you know, we could work on it a little bit and see just check out the town I have. Every time I have ever sung, people say you are completely tone deaf. So I don't think I have the skill. So if you had to pay to watch opera, who would you

to pay to listen to? Who are the great opera male and female performers that you would have paid to hear? Oh gosh, I mean I would have loved to have heard Maria Collis because of her musicianship. I mean I still go to her records all the time. Um, Victoria las Anels. I don't think I ever heard her sing live. I'm a huge fan of her singing Schwartzkopf. I did a masterclass with her, but I never heard her sing live. So there have been great history. We belong to a tapestry.

Um that is really historic, and I love that connection to what's come before, and I love celebrating that. And you know, that's something we lose in our culture right now because of this connection to to to social media and to the here and now in the momentary. This idea that you become really wonderful. It's something that and you learn about what people have done before you. You

have two daughters today want to be singers. They're wonderful singers. Um. They know too much, so they neither of them want to pursue singing. So again they the lifestyle is challenging. So I am on the road literally every three days, I'm on a plane. Well, when your daughters were younger, you've written the fact that you would pack them up and take them on the road with you and get tutors or other than that. Complicated, yeah, but worth it,

totally worth it. I really believe that their home was with me that their home was with the people who loved them, and and that's worked out well. They've turned into fabulous young women. So if you had the chance to sing one opera, only one more opera, for the rest of your life, what opera would you want to be? Because there one of rosen Cavalier was absolutely my favorite. The most interesting woman, the most complex. Um, you know, just such a three dimensional woman, which you don't find

very much. If me too is an issue, most of what we do. An opera would not be performed because women are victimized right and left. An opera because it's a it's an historic art form. So um, that's why the marshal in who has power, who has even though she's she's complex, she is much more interesting. You've done Broadway opera, um, classical music as or something you haven't done that you would like to do. Gosh, you know what, David, I'm it's already so much richer than I ever could

have imagined. If you told me that I would be in a musical on Broadway, I would have said unlikely, unlikely. So I don't think I have a wish list. What I do have is an open mind and a and a belief in the future. I absolutely believe that things come to us if we work hard and we're dedicated, and we love what we're doing, we're passionate. When you're an opera singer, you can't yell at anybody or yell anything because you could ruin your voice. Do you ever

worry about that? Or you just don't worry about that. I made that mistake once. Uh, one of my daughter's was upstairs and I shout in a moment, I shouted at her, and I felt it. I went, Oh, I had to cancel three performances at the met in a production that was that was built for me. So that was really unfortunate. So like in my case, I'm not a good singer, as I mentioned I have. I'm completely tone deaf. But you know I can sing in the shower and nobody objects. So can an opera singer sing

in the shower. That's not possible. Oh it's great to sing in the shower. It's a good place to warm up. You have all that moisture. You know you're in fact, you might become a better singer by singing in this Maybe that I mean as your practice. That more I think about that the thing that you're most proud of having achieved in your life, other than let's say, raising two very talented young women your daughters. What would you say your your most achieved that's given you most pride?

Is it coming from very modest circumstances to becoming one of the most famous people in the world in the opera world, or what would you say it is? Well, I do share with you this extraordinary wonder at the realm of possibilities that we have as Americans because, um, some of my relatives were literally coal miners in Pennsylvania. And I have sat next to Prince Charles and next to the King of Sweden at dinner parties and at various performances, and I always stop and say, isn't this amazing?

And literally in two generations that I have this, this ability to travel the world and experience every place I go um at the most extraordinary level. And the legacy that you would like people to um think about you, let's say, twenty years from now, when you people look back, I think I really expanded the possibilities for the singers who came after me by singing in multiple genre, by singing jazz, by singing, making a rock album, now singing

in music theater. Um. When I started, people discouraged that very heavily. They said, no, you're going to ruin your legacy. You will, um, you, you, you will ruin the way in which you're viewed critically. You must not step out of the box. In fact, the more specialized you are, the better. And I just thought, I, I'm too curious, I want to try new things, So I just ignored that advice. When you're an opera, when you go out for a boutt can go on for ten minutes, twenty minutes.

How long do you go out before you realize it's finally time to leave the stage and bowing and opera is an art form unto itself. It's another performance, and some people do it extremely well, and the audience loves it. They love it, you know, I sort of forced. I had friends who would yell at me through my whole career. Stay on stage. The audience wants to show you their love, their appreciation. So um, it didn't come supernaturally to me.