Quotes By Renee Fleming

I have a certain image that's more classic, and I'm happy to stay out of the fray.

I'm rarely singing in English.

For years, I had no time for exploratory travel.

Very few opera singers in history have been able to cross into popular music.

A lot of performers don't want to leave the circuit, the European opera house circuit, partly because most singers don't sing many concerts, or at least not while they are in their prime.

I'm not a reactionary.

At this stage in my career, I don't have to take any big risks. You want to take a calculated risk, not one that leads to people saying 'yes, but there was that one time when she made that big mistake.' It's always a shame when that happens, especially if you've gotten by for decades without anything hugely tragic.

Contrary to the norm, as my technique improved my voice became higher.

I do everything in the third person. Performance is about being someone else.

I don't like to sing loud.

My parents were both high-school music teachers.

Opera is really fun.

My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.

No voice teacher can be all things to all people. You have to gain information from whatever sources you can. You have to listen.

I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.

Some of my first teachers were incredibly tough. You could never sing more than three words without being stopped and having to do it over 20 times. I loved that - that sort of process of dissecting and trying to figure out and master this incredibly mysterious instrument.

Being steeped in the process of learning and exploring keeps me from becoming too nervous. Partly it's about not getting bored.

With classical singing you have to put out so much air - you project, you emit force.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived... I'm still learning all the time.

I'm reserved, so I've always needed to find a way of opening up. Jazz helped me do that.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

I learned so many roles so quickly as a young singer, I thought it was time to come back to them and make them better - deeper, more nuanced.

One of my timesaving habits is to save all of my magazines and junk mail for airplane trips. I walk on the plane with a very heavy bundle, but by the time the trip is over, it can all be thrown away.

I think touring is hard.

I enjoy the more floaty, exposed, elegant singing.

I think singing is one of the most natural things that human beings do, but it's difficult.

I have had a very difficult time with stage fright; it undermines your well-being and peace of mind, and it can also threaten your livelihood.

It is always fragile, being a parent.

My worry is that opera will become an historic art form as opposed to a living, breathing thing.

I think opera has gained a kind of glamorous appeal. It's a live performance that aligns all of the arts, and when it is represented in the media, in film in particular, it is presented as something that is really a special event, whether it's a great date or something that's just hugely romantic.