Quotes By Renee Fleming

I'm not a reactionary.

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

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 American. I'm eclectic. I'm going to follow my musical passions. And if people don't like it, and it hurts my legacy, I'm not going to worry about that.

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.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.

Opera is really fun.

I want to keep my voice young, with nothing heavy.

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

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

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

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.

Having to travel so much plays havoc with your personal life.

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

Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc.

I am so envious of my colleagues from 100 years ago who only sang new works, they hardly ever sang revivals.

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.

My parents discussed singing every night over the dinner table; I had a tremendous music education.

I'm not exactly an angry young person.

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.

It is always fragile, being a parent.

For a while it was hard for me to say no to work.

For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style.

I don't want to be somebody who stands still and sings pretty. Each song is a world. Each song is a story. I don't achieve nearly what I want.