From USItalia, November 2003

In The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defines a siren as "any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose, and disappointing performance." That seems to me as good a description as any of soprano Renée Fleming. Prodigious in range and flexibility, her voice glows like amber pierced by a ray of sunlight; its creamy luster can put the finest pearls to shame. By all accounts a lovely person, Fleming does not seem given to dissembling per se. Still, I find that she consistently fails to live up to the hype that surrounds her, and that she disappoints given her uniquely splendid promise.

Take Fleming's much-heralded Violetta in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Verdi's La traviata. Musical America implied that it was the Traviata of a lifetime, and AP raved that Fleming attained "near-perfection" in Verdi's opera. (A little perspective, people? Ever hear of a woman called Callas?) In purely vocal terms, it was an impressive achievement: Fleming acquitted herself well in Act I, opting (commendably) to sing "Ah, fors'è lui" and "Sempre libera" largely come scritto, her fioritura fluent and marred by only occasional tightness. The overall performance was less rhythmically wayward than is Fleming's wont, and she sang "Addio, del passato" uncut, gracing it with flawless diminuendi and unaffected warmth.

And there, my friends, is the rub. Too much of this Violetta seemed delivered at arm's length: Fleming as Violetta, stagy and calculated, without the abnegation that is the hallmark of great art. How else to explain the audience's titters at the old champagne-glass-into-the-fireplace bit in Act I, or at Fleming's lugubrious "È tardi!" in the last act? Fleming spun out a poised, silken "Dite alla giovine," but Ruth Ann Swenson sang this scene no less blissfully last season and more touchingly suggested the enormity of Violetta's sacrifice. Of course, Swenson had the support of conductor Bertrand de Billy, whose feverish Traviata was the finest I've heard, whereas Fleming was up against the coarse, indifferent time-beating of Valery Gergiev. Fleming brought considerable personal and vocal allure to Violetta, but she might have come off better without all the ballyhoo about a Traviata "for the ages" in what was, after all, only her second outing in the role.

Nearly as fraught, one imagines, was her Manon, sung in Paris, the city where Massenet's opera premiered, and recently issued in a "live" recording (Sony). Here one encounters the usual grab bag of Fleming mannerisms: slurps, swoons, and fussy delivery. A shame, because the beauty of her singing at its simple, radiant best (for instance, at "Pardonnez-moi, Dieu de toute puissance!") can boggle the mind. In Act I, Fleming sounds the heedless, enticing ingénue for about half a minute, then pours on enough huff and sass to pass for one of the bawds working Eleventh Avenue. As Des Grieux, the somewhat less strenuously hyped Marcelo Álvarez shows off his attractive timbre and uncertain technique, bleating and squeezing his way through "Ah! fuyez douce image." Often compelling, this Manon is nonetheless easily bested by any number of classic recordings: de los Angeles/Legay (Testament), Sills/Gedda (EMI), and Heldy/Marny (Marston, from 1923).

Speaking of Beverly Sills, the début CD of Russian soprano Anna Netrebko (DG) has inspired howlers from several major publications. Scrambling for worthy comparisons, one top-notch glossy likened Netrebko as Manon to Sills, "whom [Netrebko] resembles vocally." Say what? Only if you've never heard a single note sung by either woman. Where Sills' timbre is pure, chirpy brilliance, Netrebko's voice is a sensuous amalgam of light and dark: a smoky, sinuous core overlain with a pewter-like sheen, "pingy" on top but with a warmth in the lower and middle ranges that few soubrettes can match.

At her finest—in Teresa's aria from Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, with its madcap romp of a cadenza—this talented young artist dazzles. Netrebko's Lucia shows real promise, and her solid technique and spunky, go-for-broke style make me long to hear her sing Violetta and Gilda. That said, Netrebko's enunciation is dismal, and she sometimes falls flat on her face (not even fudging a trill at the climax of Donna Anna's "Non mi dir," for example). In spite of these flaws, a respected music magazine gushed that every one of the arias on Netrebko's CD "seems to undergo a personal spa treatment." (Note to self: Cuticles ragged. Book manicure with Anna before Saturday's hot date.)

Looking at things more charitably, I understand why journalists and handlers are reduced to churning out such piffle. To paraphrase Lampedusa's Il gattopardo, these are brutti tempi we live in. Radio and television have all but given up on opera, while the supposed "paper of record," The New York Times, spends precious column-inches parsing the blather of one Britney Spears, poised between "the isolation and disorientation of a Michael Jackson" and "the perseverance and inner strength of a Madonna." (Ah, cultural analysis that matters.) In an atmosphere of grim debasement, slaver and hype may seem like the only means left to generate interest in an increasingly marginalized art form. Still, I submit that opera, its inveterate admirers, and its potential fans are better served by measured and informed discourse. Siren songs, after all, have a nasty habit of sending everyone crashing onto the rocks.

© 2003-04 Marion Lignana Rosenberg.