Quotes By Renee Fleming

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.

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

Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc.

I don't like to sing loud.

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

Opera is really fun.

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.

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

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

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

I'm not exactly an angry young person.

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

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

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.

For years, I had no time for exploratory travel.

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

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.

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.

It is always fragile, being a parent.

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.

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