Renée Fleming – Guilty Pleasures (CD)
Conductor: Sebastian Lang-Lessing
Artists: Renée Fleming
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra
Label: Decca
Guilty Pleasures is the long-awaited follow-up to Renée's Grammy winner The Beautiful Voice. This album allows Renée to indulge in musical cherry-picking, singing songs and arias in eight different languages. The sheer, unabashed beauty of these pieces provides their thematic connection. Ranging from familiar favorites like the Flower Duet from Lakme (sung with Renée's friend Susan Graham) to rapturous, rarely-heard melodies of Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Rachmaninov, Guilty Pleasures is a collection of treats Renee has long wanted to enjoy: an album of pure gratification. A special treat is an aria from John Coriglianos The Ghosts of Versailles, a twentieth-century American opera that allows Renee the chance to sing in her native language.
Renée Fleming was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the President of the USA on July 10th. The recognition is for her contributions to American music. Known to many as the peoples diva, Ms Fleming has captivated audiences around the world with an adventurous repertoire spanning opera and the classical tradition to jazz and contemporary pop.
Superstar soprano Renée Fleming sung with a voice that demanded to be "loved for its beauty" . . . in this concentrated selection of lieder . . . Fleming showed that she's not just about the languorous legato, luscious top notes and frocks, even if none of those was in short supply . . . a world-beating diva . . . Fleming's control was largely impeccable . . . tonal beauty was allied to honestly affecting interpretation . . . --The Daily Telegraph
Track Listings:
1 1. Villanelle
2 Phidylé
3 Ombra di nube
4 5. Nana
5 6. Canción
6 Undina's Aria
7 Sumerki (Twilight), Op.21, No.3
8 Les Filles de Cadix
9 "Sous le dôme épais" (Flower Duet)
10 7. La Delaissado
11 13. Malurous qu'o uno Fenno
12 "Za Stíhlou Gazelou
13 Lullaby
14 ‘Frag mich oft’
15 5. Träume "Sag', welch wunderbare Träume"
16 "Once There Was A Golden Bird"
17 "O Danny Boy"
