MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Renee Fleming - The Beautiful Voice

" Sweet tooth, prepare for action. What does Lamb say in his Chapter on Ears? Something about piling honey upon sugar and sugar upon honey. It would be hypocritical to suggest that I personally am very worried, and of course one can always interrupt the disc, play some Stravinsky and go back to it again. Still, when the scented sequences of La rondine give way to the sweet yearnings of Die tote Stadt, or when the wistful melancholy of Carl Orff's "In trutina" prepares for the melancholy wistfulness of Richard Strauss's Morgen, and then all subsides in the languorous swoon of Rachmaninov's Vocalise and Cano's Luna, a dentist's health warning does begin to seem appropriate. Lamb again: "Words are something; but ... to be long a-dying, to be stretched upon a rack of roses ...".

The programme capitulates in stages. It begins well, sharpening the palate with Marguerite's Jewel song after Louise's erotic musings. Later it makes another attempt to inject vivacity, with the Czardas from Die Fledermaus, but the heart isn't in it and we are soon swaying dreamily with the "Viljalied" and then reclining in the drowsy sunshine and languid trickle of Canteloube's "Bailero". Just as well, one may think, that Renee Fleming's is not just a pretty voice and that Jeffrey Tate is there to liven things up if they look like going to sleep. Louise, in this performance, cares for words and feelings as well as tone, Marguerite relishes her new role of 'coquette', and Manon plays lovingly with the consciousness of her own beauty. Throughout, the singing provides pleasures that are not simply those of "the beautiful voice", as the title has it. Occasionally, it is true, one wishes for a more athletic style (the creamy Caballe-Te Kanawa associations spiced with a dash of Ninon Vallin perhaps). But this is "the beautiful voice", no doubt about that, exercised with skill and heard in what will appeal widely as a programme of captivatingly beautiful music."
Gramophone Magazine March 1998