This interview was originally recorded on April 25th, 2017.
The Oral History Project is supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.

Renée Fleming, soprano

Soprano Renée Fleming is internationally celebrated for her vocal and dramatic artistry, as well as her dedicated advocacy for the powerful impacts of the creative arts in health. Honored with five Grammy awards and the U.S. National Medal of Arts, she has sung not only in the world’s leading opera houses and concert halls, but also for momentous occasions — from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Super Bowl. In 2023, the World Health Organization appointed her as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.

Fleming’s anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness was published in 2024. She created a live program called “Music and Mind,” which she has presented in more than 70 cities around the world. She is now an advisor for major initiatives in this field, including the NeuroArts Blueprint at Johns Hopkins University. In 2024, she launched the Renée Fleming NeuroArts Investigator Awards, funding interdisciplinary research projects by early-career scientists in collaboration with creative artists.

Transcript

Marc A. Scorca: Thank you. Good evening. Please join me in welcoming Renée Fleming. Welcome to the Opera Center. Forgive me, I have a standard question I always start out by asking, and that is: who brought you to your first opera?

Renée Fleming: So, my first opera that I remember was Suor Angelica, and it was because my mother was actually performing Angelica. I remember so well, the three of us (my siblings and I) sitting right in the front at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York, and her singing 'Senza mamma' with tears streaming down her face, looking at her three little children. So, that was an indelible impression.

Marc A. Scorca: Now, your career took off like a rocket: Houston in 1988, Seattle in 1989, the Richard Tucker Award in 1990, The Met in 1991. Do you remember the last audition you had to sing? And I ask that because the first time that Flicka was in the Opera Center, she was seeing people going in for auditions, and she looked at me and she said, "Thank God I don't have to do that anymore".

Renée Fleming: Right, it's funny, because you say it took off like a rocket, and for me, there was the dead zone. There was a really painful dead zone between being a student and things really actually starting, because I was in my late twenties already, so, to me, it felt like it was taking forever. But once I got the first Figaro in Houston, then things went very quickly; it's true. And it's because I was singing the Countess, and not too many people wanted to do it, at that point, so there was space for me. The last auditions? I don't remember the actual last one, but I didn't have to audition, you know, too long; it's true. And my sort of catch-22 remark all these years has been that the minute you stop auditioning, or get good at auditioning, is the minute you don't need to anymore.

Marc A. Scorca: I suspect that's very true. In my introduction, I mentioned your performances in Maria Padilla in Omaha, The Ghosts of Versailles at The Met, and actually that season you sang Countess as well, which was a sort of accidental debut. But those three pieces, in a way, define so much your career of rarely performed opera, masterpieces, and new work. And how has this variety fed you as an artist?

Renée Fleming: Well, I've always loved new music, and in fact, I recently had a distinctive memory of the LP jacket of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. And I found it online, exactly which version it was, because I think I wore it out, as a very little girl. I played it over and over and over again. And I suspect knowing now what I know about music and the brain, that this fed my taste, because I've always been more interested in music that was a bit unexpected, that didn't quite have an obvious resolution. And so that definitely is the new music piece. And the masterworks really went from Mozart to Strauss - no question with a little bit of Slavic repertoire and a few Italian roles, a lot of French. And then, I would say for the obscure roles, yes, I did a lot of unusual repertoire, that's true.

Marc A. Scorca: And I assume that preparing roles is very different, whether it is something that is of historical or baroque nature, something that's new and has never been performed, so that you have no performance practice at all and you have to invent the character, versus a masterpiece where there's such a history of it. Is it very different for you preparing for these different kinds of works?

Renée Fleming: I rather like the ones where there isn't this template, because one feels freer. I'm not trying to measure up to anybody else's performance. And then also working with a living composer was, of course, the greatest gift of all, because they could tailor-make the role to my voice. The biggest issue for me was that my particular instrument was so specific, that I couldn't sing the heavier heroic repertoire, and yet I wasn't really a coloratura soprano either. So just finding that sweet spot for me was challenging, and it's made it also probably a bit hard for other people to kind of get a handle on who I am, vocally speaking, where opera's concerned.

Marc A. Scorca: But certainly that variety has certainly fed your spirit, deepened your artistry, as you have found mastery in each of these different spheres.

Renée Fleming: I think I've sung about 55 roles, something like that, and I definitely like the variety of it. I'm not a huge repeater. I don't like doing the same thing over and over and over again.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you recommend variety to young singers who ask you for advice?

Renée Fleming: No, but I'm saying that because nobody's asked me. They ask me how to learn repertoire. They ask me a lot about the preparation and sometimes about choosing, but nobody's ever asked me that question, actually.

Marc A. Scorca: Because the variety is not only staged opera, but also the variety that you do in recital; that you do do recital and staged opera - again feeding you creatively? How does that work?

Renée Fleming: Well, Leontyne Price said, when I met her, "You're a three-prong singer, and I had no idea what she meant". And she meant, concerts with orchestra, opera and recitals. And I thought, "Doesn't everybody do that?" And when I met her, she said, "No, actually, they don't, not everyone does do that". So, there's no question that I've really enjoyed the variety a lot. And another interesting thing - when I was starting out, there was this notion that new music was bad for your voice. That the sort of (sings random notes at varying pitches) "Hoo ha ha ha" quality of new music would hurt your voice. And instead, "You should all sing Mozart". And I thought "It's the opposite for me", because Mozart and the repertoire that I sing is incredibly challenging for young singers, because it all sits in the passaggio, and it requires almost a clarity and a perfectionism that's very hard for us early on. Whereas new music for me, allowed me to move freely through the voice, and never get too hung up or stuck. So, you know, "Go figure".

Marc A. Scorca: Were you blessed with perfect pitch?

Renée Fleming: No, good relative pitch.

Marc A. Scorca: So, you had to sit there and plunk it out, and really learn it.

Renée Fleming: Absolutely. Yeah.

Marc A. Scorca: In terms of the recital work: there you are, without costumes, without a set, without a stage director who says, "Move here, move here". Is it more challenging to plan your own mise-en-scène, to plan your own program, to be alone with your clothes and the audience?

Renée Fleming: I find it a huge challenge. Programming takes years off my life. It's just hard. I'm a perfectionist with it. I want everyone in the audience to be happy and to take something away, and so I suffer a lot over programming, and you can ask my management, they suffer too. And the presenters suffer, "Oh, can we please have the program?" And it's about wanting to have variety, really thinking about where I am, what city, imagining, and also stretching myself, trying to incorporate new things, but not making it too stressful. So, you asked a good question because it really is hard. But I love it. I mean, I love it because I can create. I'm going to Asia soon. I can think about, "Well, who do I want to be on this trip?" I haven't been there in a while. What parts of my repertoire do I wanna share with this audience, from Hong Kong to Seoul to Beijing and Shanghai. And then also, I'm touring Europe right after this, with Four Last Songs. So, obviously that's probably the piece I've sung more than anything, at all, by far.

Marc A. Scorca: It's nice to know you're slowing down so much. A generation ago, the leading singers of the day didn't do new music, and part of it was there wasn't that much new opera to do, and then it just wasn't something that the major singers wanted to do, or thought they should do. Today it's so different, where you think of all of the leading artists and they're all creating roles. What has changed, that's just turned it completely around?

Renée Fleming: And I love to think back a century, when everything that a singer sang was new. It hasn't been that long that we've been stuck in this repertoire that's been repeated for decades now. I think what changed is, first of all, the audience - I know that me, as an audience member, was longing for some variety and some novelty in a way. And I think that we had some popular composers also who were able to write music that the audience enjoyed that was vocal, that was written to work very well for singers. That's made a huge difference, I would say. Whatever the elements are, I'm thrilled. And then we have this burgeoning small-work scene between Beth Morrison Projects and a lot of people doing shorter pieces; I love that. I mean, I think that's the most hopeful sign of a healthy opera landscape.

Marc A. Scorca: And we'll talk a little bit more about that, and how it is helping to break down barriers for audiences. Indeed, your advocacy for new work applies even at Lyric Opera of Chicago, because the project Bel Canto, Jimmy López's opera is one that you really shepherded. And I'd love to hear how you put that project together, and then what it was like to essentially birth an opera you weren't in.

Renée Fleming: Well, first of all, I love new music, so I'm always listening to new works, and I discovered in that process - I mean, I put together a spreadsheet of about 110 composers, and I realized that that's the tip of the iceberg. So, I focused then on American composers, and the idea was to look for people who had craft, who could orchestrate, who really could put the piece together, but who also had a unique language, and one that would be, not accessible in a sort of overly romantic notion, but that the audience would be able to have a takeaway from it. So, that was sort of the criteria. And then once Anthony (Freud) and Sir Andrew (Davis) agreed to Bel Canto, to actually choosing the subject, and then choosing the composer, which is of course rare, then it seemed to make sense to focus on somebody who could represent a Latino world. The actual hostage crisis took place in Peru. I just sang the voice for Julianne Moore for the film, which is coming out this year, so Bel Canto lives on. It just turned out really well. And I didn't wanna sing in it because I said, "Then it looks like a vanity project". It looks like, "Oh, look at Renée Fleming. She got this new work produced so that she could create a role". So, I specifically didn't want that to happen to the piece.

Marc A. Scorca: Did you go to workshops? Did you watch the work develop?

Renée Fleming: Absolutely. Nilo Cruz, the librettist - I was in the sessions that he had to try and help him sort of comprehend how an opera breaks down, musically speaking. What set pieces are, why this might be a good quartet, why that might be a nice duet. So, it was a really fabulous learning experience also for me.

Marc A. Scorca: And then of course, it was telecast on PBS, which is a fantastic final achievement for the piece. And Jimmy has a wonderful, wonderful musical vocabulary, and I hope he's working on another opera.

Renée Fleming: Yes, me too. And I would love to see Bel Canto performed more, so I'm hoping it gets picked up.

Marc A. Scorca: You've performed in so many important American operas. Has any of them gone across an ocean? Have you performed any of those American operas in Europe?

Renée Fleming: Streetcar Named Desire I sang in London, the same semi-staged production that I brought here to Carnegie Hall - Lyric Opera and LA Opera. That's the only one.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you feel that the American opera aesthetic, the way we are creating new works today is an aesthetic that translates across the ocean? Or is it really an American aesthetic?

Renée Fleming: I think it does now. I would say there would be room, for sure now, for some of the new works. I mean, if you think of John Adams' Doctor Atomic, and this type of language would be extremely popular in Europe, I think, just as some of those works are coming over here, 'cause the language is becoming a little more global, I would say between Thomas Adès and some of the composers that we have. It's not quite the split that it was - even 15 years ago, you would point to American music as being a little bit, perhaps too reactionary for a European audience, and European music being really too inaccessible for an American audience, and I think that's changed.

Marc A. Scorca: And you mentioned Beth Morrison Projects. I know you're involved with National Sawdust, which is just a wonderful space out in Brooklyn. These works are really testing the boundaries of how we have defined opera. And given your repertoire, one might think that those traditional boundaries would be ones that you'd want to enforce, but you really like these boundary-breaking works. What is it about that creative edge that appeals to you?

Renée Fleming: I do. I mean, first of all, it's theater. It becomes then theater with music, and with singing, so it's really that the focus is slightly different. They're shorter; they're in a way smaller - smaller accompaniment. Also, you don't see full orchestra usually. So, I love that there are many more of them. You can have a festival. The danger that I see is that I fear that companies will not wanna produce mainstage opera in its full, kind of larger form, and that, I think, would be unfortunate.

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah, it is a real issue that we discuss at our annual conferences, where there's so much work that's being done for alternative venues and chamber works, that you don't want to escape doing the new work for the big stage, as you did, of course, with Bel Canto.

Renée Fleming: Yes. And I think there's risk. I mean, no question, I suspect that that is at the heart of the issues kind of feeding into this. And also another thing is, the companies have found out that they can produce two or three of these smaller works, as opposed to one big work. So, this has yet to settle into something consistent.

Marc A. Scorca: And, of course, the new works are frequently about topics that resonate with the world we live in.

Renée Fleming: It's complicated; getting more complicated.

Marc A. Scorca: A complicated world, for sure. Your assistant, Paul said something I liked a lot in an email yesterday. He said, "So many operas are about doomed young girls". And, you know, if you think about the standard repertoire and the condition of women, and the treatment, and they're victims, and their only solution is to jump or stab or do something. I think in many ways the reason that Handel and Mozart still feel so contemporary is because the women are real, three-dimensional characters.

Renée Fleming: I know, it's incredible, isn't it?

Marc A. Scorca: They're so contemporary. So, I imagine that you'd like to see some more new opera with strong female characters.

Renée Fleming: Yes, absolutely. And I have to say also: for me, one of the issues that I face as a lyric soprano is there's almost no repertoire for me at this stage of my life. It doesn't really work for me to play a 19-year-old anymore, as much as I wish it did. So yeah, I think that's one of the issues that we face. And had my voice gotten heavier, and I could have moved into more dramatic repertoire, there would be certainly pieces. But that's the other thing is why should a mature woman be a witch or one of these characters? You're either a victim or you're evil. I mean, this has been the woman's crisis in opera and I think a hundred years ago, life expectancy was around 50, so perhaps performers just didn't have long careers, I don't know.

Marc A. Scorca: It was Amy Burton who said to me that we have to encourage the librettists to create the stories that the composers will set, that have strong women in them.

Renée Fleming: This is why we need more women composers and more women librettists; that will solve that problem.

Marc A. Scorca: We have the program for female composers. We have to get one for female librettists; that would be terrific. The issue of resonance with today's audience, and I know that you think a lot about the opera audience, and that opera is challenged in having these perceptions of being inaccessible. We know it's long; you know better than any of us, that it's long. So, when you look at opera, and the opera companies today, and the opera audiences, what do you see as some of the challenges to bringing new people in?

Renée Fleming: Well, I think first of all, people still to this day - every time I'm in front of a camera, or in an interview that I know is going to be received by the general public, I still have to say, "You can wear jeans, and there are supertitles". I get this all the time, and maybe it's an excuse so that people don't think they have to try it, but I often receive the, "Oh, it's a foreign language, and I wouldn't know what to wear". So still. And I think length is an issue. My husband won't go to a movie until he's checked how long it is. A ton of new people have been coming to see Der Rosenkavalier. People who've never been to the opera, and I always poll them afterwards, and that is the first thing that comes out, you know, "Couldn't it be consolidated?" And we've talked about this. I do think a lot of these pieces were (cut), earlier in the 20th century, and why couldn't we somehow present both and give the audience an option? So, I think that's important. I think the larger theaters are also difficult, because my entire generation, and all of us, are so used to being able to see everything in HD closeup. So, just an aural experience with a very distant, blurry picture is sort of not what we're used to anymore. But most importantly at number one, because my children and their friends are the next generation, and they receive everything in a digital package, and they are used to having access to any kind of entertainment they wanna have 24/7. And if it's not part of that, they are less inclined to get involved, I think. So, that's the main thing that we face.

Marc A. Scorca: Over lunch the other week, you were talking about how your daughter also goes with groups of people - the progressive evening, and with groups of friends.

Renée Fleming: She loves this sort of app that has a parlor concept, that you're going to different venues, you don't know what's gonna be presented. It's very often storytelling, sometimes there's music, there's usually wine and it's social, which is exactly how we should be presenting opera.

Marc A. Scorca: And as Renée says, the complete, unabridged versions are a fairly recent reinvention. The operas that we know so well and love, and the singers we loved in them sang much shorter versions of them. There were always cuts and trims.

Renée Fleming: Yes, definitely. You didn't always have a da capo; you didn't always have extended recitative. These pieces were composed at a time when there was no other form of entertainment really, other than the secular at home, or the sacred. And so, it is beginning to be obvious to some of us that times have changed. Our lives are moving very quickly, and frankly, everything has to evolve in some way. So this is one option, I think, that's kind of interesting.

Marc A. Scorca: I think it's so important that we have someone of Renée's stature as an artist, be willing to talk about the bones of the art form itself, and how do we work with those bones to make compelling audience experiences. Producers will get shot down. You're the artist who can speak for where opera may need to go, to appeal to a new audience.

Renée Fleming: Well, and the first company that does that is going to definitely take a hit. It would have to be a consortium, I think. This is something OPERA America could do, for instance, with companies that would say, "Yeah, we're on board with trying this". I believe firmly that you could put the greatest opera in the world on stage, and you're not necessarily gonna get new people in, because that is preaching to the converted. People who are gonna come are people who were already going to come. So, what we've tried to do at Lyric Opera is bring in people through other means, whether it was Second City Guide to the Opera, or Chicago Voices, which was about blending different styles of singing together, to bring us back into the conversation about voice. This started with American Idol when my daughter said, "Mom, you know a lot, how come you're not involved in this? Why aren't you a coach or something?" I said, "I don't know. Why aren't I?"

Marc A. Scorca: I was gonna ask you, because you had The Kennedy Center American Voices, and Lyric Opera of Chicago Chicago Voices. Would you share with us what these events are, and how genre-bending they are?

Renée Fleming: Well, my idea, 'cause I love singing, I'm so passionate about singing in all styles was to bring people together from all these different genres and have us not only perform together, but have masterclasses and panels, really looking at the business, looking at vocal health, why have so many artists had surgeries in recent years, and trying to sort of see where we can share what we know. So, when I do it again, it would be a team-teaching effort. I mean, for instance, Kurt Elling, great jazz singer, gave a 30 minute presentation on how to learn how to sing scat. And I said, "Wow, that's fantastic". And it was so articulate and well done. Also, the first time with American Voices, there were doctors who presented, and just being there has improved my vocal health, I learned so much. So that's why I do it.

Marc A. Scorca: And these are community-based singers, professionals, mixed together, community and professional?

Renée Fleming: It's basically professionals who come in. In Chicago Voices, they were all major Chicago names. Jessie Mueller, for instance, joined us and Kurt and then for the masterclasses and the panels, a lot of young singers, teachers come and participate. It's an opportunity to really share what we know as well.

Marc A. Scorca: And rooted in your belief that singing is that universal communication platform, and that if you get people to understand and appreciate singing, then the doors open.

Renée Fleming: Absolutely. And everyone can sing; it doesn't cost anything. And the effect of these shows, American Idol, The Voice, America's Got Talent, I saw in my children's schools, that you had a whole generation of young people who could sell a song like crazy. They'd kick their shoes off, take the mic off the stand, whip the whole cord, the whole thing, but they couldn't sing. So, they have this tremendous sort of (enthusiasm), and we were terrified when we were kids; we could hardly move. I mean, I was called Stone Face when I was in choir, but there was a rigorous musical and vocal education, even in public school then. That's sort of the idea behind it, is how to share this knowledge. I mean, we have centuries of really best practices behind us, just even with breath and support alone, it's very helpful.

Marc A. Scorca: Musicals. So, important in Chicago, important in your own life with the announcement of your going back to Broadway. So, clearly you feel musicals are a valid, wonderful art form. Do you also see them as a bridge into opera, or just as this wonderful thing on its own?

Renée Fleming: Well, one of the reasons why (when I started at Lyric Opera) one of my initiatives was to present an American classical musical, is because I did feel that it was a bridge. It certainly was a bridge. Bonnie Raitt told me that John Raitt, her father, when he retired, kept singing German Lieder around the swimming pool. And when I asked her why, she said "It's because that's how he was trained", and he came back to it for fun when he retired. And that connection is less now, because there's so many other styles of Broadway performance, including rap, now. But certainly for Rodgers and Hammerstein and some Lerner and Loewe shows, it's still helpful to have that kind of training. So, it's made sense to connect the two, and I think other opera companies are also doing this thing now.

Marc A. Scorca: Sure, and you're absolutely right. Those pieces written for the unamplified voice. And young singers who went into that would suddenly discover they had an opera voice, because of what was required to sing the musical.

Renée Fleming: Yeah, interesting. I also found it fascinating recently to discover there's a generational gap as well, because some fans (who've been around for a long time) have really been shocked that I'm going to do this musical, and said, "Do you have to?"

Marc A. Scorca: I mean, two homes now, Washington and New York.

Renée Fleming: I know. I think they literally meant, "Do you need the money?" But it made me understand that there was this idea that it was a step down, and that is so gone now. I mean, that is absolutely not the case anymore, and if anything, it's an opportunity to reach another audience. And for me, it's an opportunity to be home for a while. I'm looking forward to that.

Marc A. Scorca: You've done Broadway before. What's it like doing eight shows a week?

Renée Fleming: Well, it was a brief time; I didn't have time to get tired really for Living on Love, which was a play about an opera star, but it was really fun. It's such a different feeling because we are perpetual nomads. Even if we see colleagues that we know and love, we're gone again and off to the next engagement. And in this case, you are with the same people in a rehearsal process and then for six days a week. So, I really enjoyed it. Now, a musical's gonna be different because it's singing, and we'll see. We'll see.

Marc A. Scorca: You talk about being on the road, being a nomad, and I certainly do speak with other guests here about the rigor of being a successful opera singer. And you're not only a successful opera singer, you have just risen to the top of the field historically. You are always in an airplane, you're always in a hotel. It's gotta be really difficult to enjoy the success when you're away from home all the time.

Renée Fleming: The last two years have been especially hard, because I was on a plane every three days pretty much, and I don't think I would do that again, because it's sort of not worth it, at a certain point. But I love what I do so much - the possibility to connect with an audience, and the thing I love the most, I think - besides kind of putting together a program that I hope that people will enjoy and respond to, and you get that instant feedback - is also I talk to the audience and try to share my personality, and share some thoughts about why I love certain music. And to discover that there's this sort of communication process that really does help everybody have a good time. Just enjoy it and love the music, whether it's Henri Dutilleux's piece, or a very obscure Czech aria, it seems to be helpful.

Marc A. Scorca: In that spirit of giving advice, when there are young promising singers - you see them all the time; you've done masterclasses - what advice do you give about how to live your life as a busy opera singer?

Renée Fleming: Well, singing right now with Erin Morley, for instance, in Rosenkavalier, a brilliant young soprano who had a baby, just a couple of months ago. And it's reminded me of having to kind of make that work at the very beginning of your career, and how that happens. And it is a challenge and it's a balancing act, but it's so worth it, and I'm happy to see her doing that. So, she'll never be sorry. I tell them honestly what the challenges are, but I think the first challenge is getting work in the first place, so that's where I start.

Marc A. Scorca: Absolutely. Do you enjoy doing masterclasses? You're very good at them.

Renée Fleming: Yeah, I do. Now I do them increasingly more, because I have more time when I travel. But I see so many young singers all across the country, and that's one of the things that I do worry about is - they have these degrees. I've also been in department stores in regional cities, and seen somebody burst into tears when they see me, and they say, "Oh, I was trying to become a singer, but I have so much college debt, I had to stop". And so that, I think, is really sad.

Marc A. Scorca: And we've mapped it. There are just more and more singers, there are more university opera programs that are larger, more young artist programs, and that's why there are so many of these indie opera companies as many of the artists are just using their wits and the internet to create their own performance opportunities. It's very difficult.

Renée Fleming: It's the best way to do it. Yo-Yo Ma is somebody I so admire, and he often makes a case for going into a community and saying, "Well, you don't know this, but you need me", and creating work for yourself, exactly.

Marc A. Scorca: I wanted to chat a little bit about your work as an artist-citizen/a citizen-artist. And I attended the Art Summit last year when you were there with Yo-Yo, and really talking about the life of the artist as a citizen, having impact in the community outside the walls of the opera house. Clearly something that really matters to you. What about that work fulfills you?

Renée Fleming: Well, first of all, I know so many young people who are doing it more and better than I ever have done it. I'm just so impressed that from a young age, they start giving back and doing community service and really sharing their talent. I'm doing it now by working with these institutions and trying really not just audience development, but trying to sort of define why we need the arts at all. What it is about us as human beings, as really a community in America that benefits from having the arts, and the thing that I keep coming back to is this idea of a shared experience. We are all here together right now, and otherwise we'd be at home, watching television or again, hooked up to something plugged in. And I think that that's one of the most important aspects to this, is that in an increasingly isolating type of community life in this country, we need the arts more than ever.

Marc A. Scorca: I was remembering because this week, the sitting Surgeon General left the administration.

Renée Fleming: Wasn't he great last year?

Marc A. Scorca: He was fabulous. I wanted to bring that up. He was just wonderful.

Renée Fleming: We were all bowled over.

Marc A. Scorca: He was on this wonderful panel, and it was the Surgeon General speaking about the importance of the arts to the wellbeing of the individual, and the psychic emotional wellbeing that is so critical. He was brilliant.

Renée Fleming: Yeah, and going around and also helping students learn how to meditate. I mean, a lot of things that we haven't heard from a Surgeon General before.

Marc A. Scorca: You're working with the NIH (National Institutes of Health) in partnership with the Kennedy Center. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Renée Fleming: So, I've been interested actually in music and the brain by being a New Yorker, and seeing once a month something in The Times about some new piece of neuroscience that really started to be fascinating to me. And I was at a dinner party and Francis Collins was there, who's the head of the NIH, and this was right after two huge decisions by the Supreme Court. It was a very small dinner party outside of Washington, and Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy and Scalia were all there, having just really clashed in this decision. They weren't making eye contact with each other, but they came, which is a fabulous example for our culture, that they still came. And so Francis and I decided to start singing together to sort of, you know, break the tension a little bit and just sort of get everyone to relax. He had his guitar, and while we were doing this, (and I was trying to think of every single folk and country music song I knew)...

Marc A. Scorca: ...knew by heart.

Renée Fleming: Yes, exactly. ...I asked him about some of these studies, and I said, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if these two institutions could collaborate in this way?" So, this has turned into a spectacular expansion of a program they had, where already the NIH has had a workshop inviting many of the top researchers and music therapists together to present for two days. I got to sit there, just being bowled over by what I learned. And then, we'll have an NSO concert with me and Ben Folds. Dan (Daniel J.) Levitin who wrote, This Is Your Brain On Music, will host, and we'll have two other major neuroscientists and doctors present as well, and then the next day, a whole day of seminars, touching on children, childhood development, touching on music therapy and how these various therapies impact on so many different issues - autism and Alzheimer's, pain relief, PTSD, stroke, Parkinson's, it's remarkable. And then also about creative aging and how it's so extremely good for the brain and for our health (emotional health and physical health) if we stay connected to something we love, whether it's singing in a choir, which is also good for your immune system, or playing an instrument, picking it back up again, and I've found this extremely fascinating.

Marc A. Scorca: It is so frustrating, because there is so much rich literature about this available, and none of us has time to read it. If only we could get everyone to read the research, I think public policy would perhaps be a little bit different.

Renée Fleming: Well, it's bubbling under the surface, and I'm hoping that we can continue to kind of push this message out that this is good for us, and with health and wellness being the biggest growing industry in our country, whether it's hospitals or caretaking, this should be a big part of it.

Marc A. Scorca: So many artists we know, live in the world of their virtuosity, and we understand why, it's not easy to be a virtuoso; it takes focus and discipline. And yet here you are, stepping out of your comfort zone as a virtuoso into the world of public policy and public programs that support people, not just opera people. Do you feel that artists have a responsibility to have impact in the community beyond just their art form?

Renée Fleming: I don't think it's a responsibility. I feel it's a privilege, because I've been given this opportunity to do this, and it's so simulating. It's enjoyable for me because I'm learning, and I'm the kind of person who's going to be a lifelong learner, and you should all be too, because, again, it's so good for us. So no, I don't think it's a responsibility, because not everyone has that personality, and some people really wanna live in their art, and just are so focused on what they're gonna learn next, and where they're gonna perform it. And that's great too.

Marc A. Scorca: As you think about this transition in your career and your rebalancing, what advice do you have, more generally, for those entering the field about balance, about dedication, focus? What advice do you have for those young singers who are listening to this interview?

Renée Fleming: Well, first of all, longevity is a function of your own balance. It's a function of how well you take care of your voice, your vocal hygiene, the smartest choices that you make in terms of repertoire and your schedule, even your emotional health in terms of your private life. So, first of all, just to get them to the place where they can sing for a long time is huge. I mean, there isn't so much repertoire for me at the moment in opera, but I spent 80% of my time touring and have for quite some time now, and Leontyne Price, you know, she sang for another 15 years beyond where I am right now. So, that's my goal. In fact, my schedule isn't changing very much at all. And I hope that young singers have a long-term idea. And none of us do - when we're young, we want everything right now. I was so disappointed, when I was in my mid-twenties, that it wasn't happening in that moment; I had to wait til 28. Come on. So, patience, hard work, resilience: these are some of the qualities that I talk about when I'm teaching.

Marc A. Scorca: How fabulous. As you experience singers in Europe versus American singers, the relative level of preparation, what's the difference between the young American singer and the young aspiring European singer?

Renée Fleming: What I hear most when I'm in Europe is that American singers are good students. So, the level of preparation is very high. But the courage, the interpretive taking that bull by the horn, also personality are not on as high a level as one finds with European singers. And I think that's changing also very quickly now. But it's true that we have a longer education; it's a rigorous education. And within that education, based on how it's set up, we are encouraged to fit into kind of a structure that's consistent. Whereas in Europe, they don't spend as much time in school and conservatory as we do. So they get out quicker. And let's face it, many of them are singing opera in their native tongue, in a language that they already know well, whereas we have to take so much time to learn those languages, the styles, all of that. I saw the same thing when I went to China; it's not that different. Somebody from the Midwest who's never been outside of the country, has a tougher road than somebody who's in Europe who's traveling all over, and speaks maybe six languages already. But again, with the internet, of course, which gives us access to native speakers in terms of listening to music, it helps.

Marc A. Scorca: In all of our emails back and forth, and our conversations, we've never talked about K to 12 education, 'cause you mentioned education and the diminishment of European arts in education. Is that something that you have talked to people about? About what we need to do to try to keep music in the schools? And it doesn't have to be just European music, but music. So, kids are learning rhythm and learning pitches. Have you spoken to any people in the policy circle about that?

Renée Fleming: I haven't yet. And so, one of the things that I'm learning from this NIH project, of course, is that there's no doubt now, studies have proven across the boards that music education, learning an instrument, in particular, helps children become better students. They have a better capacity for auditory understanding and comprehension. And this idea of trying to coordinate something between your hand and your brain also helps the brain develop. Another thing that I heard recently from a chairman of a board of a major, major arts institution, is that he said, when he interviews CEOs in the finance world, and he says, "How many of you studied an instrument in music", almost all of them raise their hands. We know that's true in medicine. Any of us who love music, or are musicians, we just think, "Gosh, there's so many doctors who love music, or studied it, how did this happen?" And another conductor told me recently, "And also astronomers". Well, there's a piece of trivia I'm gonna keep with me; that's good. The other interesting thing I learned in basic science, is that we now believe that music predated speech in our evolution. So, that tells you we are hardwired for this. Listen, I haven't researched the other arts, and I'm sure there's a lot of power in movement, in dance, and also in the visual arts.

Marc A. Scorca: Very diplomatically put. (We know music is best). A few years ago now, I chaired an important high school reunion. And what was interesting was the high proportion of the people at the reunion who had been in the chorus, or the band, or the drama department, because performing and rehearsing together and practicing together created a bond, and those people felt tied to one another - and the same with the sports people as well, that they felt tied to something, and created something with their colleagues that was bigger than just themselves. And it was a special bonding in the K to 12 setting.

Renée Fleming: Really, any kind of community theater. I mean, wouldn't it be great if every opera company had a sort of division, where people could come and actually perform, who love the art form. I think it's fantastic.

Marc A. Scorca: Amateur opera's hard; you could have an amateur symphony and choruses, of course. Lots of amateurs. It's hard to sing La Bohème as an amateur. It doesn't work guite as well.

Renée Fleming: People do it though (scrunches face). You could have karaoke night and you'll get a sense of what's out there.

Marc A. Scorca: If we go to karaoke night, I wanna go with you. Perhaps we can take a question or two for Renée.

Audience Member #1: I've seen many interviews that you've given, and you speak so eloquently about the technical aspects of singing, and so eloquently about the artistry, and I'm wondering if you could just give us like an indulgent moment to describe your own voice, the way you feel it, and the way you hear it.

Marc A. Scorca: An interesting question.

Renée Fleming: It is an interesting question. So, I don't hear what you hear; it is sort of my inner ear. So, what I am focused on is interpretation. So, what I hear is, "What was the shape of that phrase?" And "Was I able to bring out the text in the way that I wanted to?" And "What was the inflection?" And the fun that I had, for instance, in the performance last night, I had this gift of doing three things that I'd never done before. You know, it's called inspiration, it's called flow, being in the zone. And there were three moments, whether it was an activity, or a way of singing a word. So, I thought, "Oh, that was new". And this is the ideal, that something is so much in your voice that you are expressing it as if it were a play, and you're in the moment as much as you can be. But this is declamatory, it's a lot of text, but if I'm singing something that's purely vocal, that's about beauty, that's about a particular phrase or a turn of phrase, then I'm thinking about a landscape. So, I see my vocal line as a sort of a landscape, as if you were drawing it.

Marc A. Scorca: In our quickfire questions before the audience came in, Richard Strauss came out as really being at the top of the list for you. You feel his characters, you feel his music. Is it a combination of character and music that speak to you so profoundly?

Renée Fleming: Well, the roles that I've done of Strauss, with the exception of Daphne, which is a huge vocal hurdle are, I think, three generations of the same woman. I do think that Arabella, the Countess and the Marschallin have a lot in common. They're more interesting, they're more complicated than other operatic characters. And you don't always know what they're thinking; you have to kind of piece it together for yourself.

Marc A. Scorca: When I interviewed Susan Graham, she was talking about her life, and she said that there were years where the only person she kissed was Renée Fleming in bed waiting for the curtain to go up on the first act of Der Rosenkavalier.

Renée Fleming: Listen, that's a testament to the sadness of our travels.

Marc A. Scorca: She said, "We'd be in bed while the overture's going on. 'How are the kids? How's everybody?"'

Renée Fleming: By some miracle, we're both happily married now.

Marc A. Scorca: Another question.

Audience Member #2: My question concerns the growth of a singer and the evolution of the repertoire. How much can a singer stretch and grow and work into fuller repertoire? And how much of that is predetermined by genetics?

Renée Fleming: I think it's absolutely predetermined by genetics. We hear people's speaking voices, and you have a sense of, very often, the type of power that they'll have, but not consistently, not always. My speaking voice is terrible; you wouldn't even know I was a singer. I do see singers who clearly have worked hard to create a technique that gives them the most power they could possibly have, and then aging adds another whole element. I mean, who would predict that Plácido Domingo, as a young tenor, would still be singing, and singing baritone repertoire as well as he does? So, I think it's very hard to know. I feel that if I'm pushing my voice, I feel it. It doesn't feel great, and I don't like having the pressure to sing loud all the time. I don't enjoy singing like that. I like finesse; I'm much more interested in that. So, the answer to your question is, I don't really know, but if it's pushed outside of the realm of the nicest quality sound you can make, then I would say it's probably gone too far. But that's me. A lot of people are happy just to make a big sound and sing the rep they wanna sing.

Marc A. Scorca: What great advice that is. Ladies and gentlemen, we've heard from a master singer, from a great artist, from a great intellect, someone taking on public policy issues and seeking to bring opera outside of the opera house in every way that it can benefit the world we live in. It is so impressive to hear you speak and to realize that we have decades of your leadership, both as an artist, and as a public figure. So, Renée Fleming, thank you so much for doing this.