By most standards, Renée Fleming has done it all and more.
Arguably the most famous classical singer of our time, the soprano has won five Grammy awards and a U.S. National Medal of Arts. The 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree has sung at such occasions as the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony and the Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II. In 2008, she was the first woman to solo headline the opening night gala at the Metropolitan Opera. Perhaps most famously, she was the first classical artist ever to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl in 2014.
But the 65-year-old artist’s performances continue to evolve as she explores new avenues. Remaining the “people’s diva,” she is always looking for new ways to connect to audiences.
This brings Fleming to Boulder for her first performance at Macky Auditorium on Jan. 31, the marquee event of the current CU Presents Artist Series season. The recital program is based on her 2023 Grammy-winning album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene.
“I love the art of the recital, and I keep looking for ways to make it more personal,” Fleming tells Boulder Weekly. “I used to leave the stage after short groupings of pieces, as is standard, but now I prefer to stay on and talk about what I’m going to sing next.”
While Fleming continues to deliver traditional classical concerts, she enjoys creating more eclectic set lists, mixing art songs with more esoteric material, as she will in her Macky appearance.
“I’m always excited to put together programs with a theme where I can tell a whole story with different types of music,” she says, noting that pieces by classical composers are juxtaposed with a Björk song (“All Is Full of Love”) and material from the Lord of the Rings film scores, for which she sang.
The era of humanity
Our current geological era is commonly described as “the Anthropocene” — though not the technical term for the ongoing epoch, it continues to be used widely to reflect the impact of human activity on Earth. Fleming’s recording and recital are based on this idea.
“We haven’t had the best influence on the planet, and the program reflects that,” she says. “But most of it celebrates the beauty and wonder of nature through the lens of music.”
“It always interested me that the poetry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose settings are what I mostly sing, mixed the human condition with nature,” Fleming continues. “The connection was always there.”
The concert also includes brand new American songs and other commissions, reflective of where we are now. The most innovative aspect is the inclusion of a film provided by National Geographic. It was created to run continuously behind Fleming’s performance in the first half of the concert.
“I met the CEO of the National Geographic Society at a dinner party, and a two-minute conversation resulted in the film,” she says. “I told them what I was thinking and they said I was an influencer, so we should do it.”
Mixing it up
The second half is slightly more conventional, including pairs of songs by Richard Strauss and Gabriel Fauré, a couple of traditional American offerings, and ending with “The Diva,” a piece written for Fleming by composer Andrew Lippa.
“It was originally composed as a duet for me and Vanessa Williams,” Fleming says. “And [it] is a lot of fun to do solo, too.”
Regarding the mixture of genres, Fleming says audiences and critics have become more open in recent years. The inclusion of the unexpected brings a delighted response from audiences. “My biggest hit these days is Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah,’ which I usually do as an encore,” she says.
The pianist on the original Anthropocene recording is Metropolitan Opera music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, but Fleming’s partner on the Macky program is Howard Watkins, the Met’s assistant conductor.
“Howard is an elegant and excellent player,” Fleming says. Watkins always plays the extremely difficult piano part in the orchestration of The Hours, the opera by Kevin Puts that premiered at the Met in 2022 with Fleming in the lead role.
Fleming’s many current roles include directing the opera program at the Aspen Music Festival and advising the Kennedy Center. She also serves as both a global ambassador for the World Economic Forum and a goodwill ambassador to the World Health Organization for the intersection of arts and health. That intersection underlies Fleming’s Music and the Mind program, which she presents at the CU Anschutz Medical Center on Jan. 30 at noon.
She will also give a free masterclass with CU Boulder graduate voice students at Grusin Music Hall at 6 p.m. Jan. 30, a rare opportunity for these young artists to work with an internationally renowned performer and for the public to observe her mentorship.
ON THE BILL: Soprano Renée Fleming presents Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene for the CU Presents Artist Series. 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31. Macky Auditorium, 1595 Pleasant St., Boulder. $33-$138