{"id":38711,"date":"2016-09-22T14:29:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T18:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=38711"},"modified":"2016-10-04T07:39:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T11:39:33","slug":"scrutiny-renee-fleming-tso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/09\/22\/scrutiny-renee-fleming-tso\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Ren\u00e9e Fleming Soars, Roy Thomson Hall Flops"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2016\/17
2016\/17 TSO Season Opener with soprano Rene\u0301e Fleming at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo: Dale Wilcox)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ren\u00e9e Fleming with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conductor Peter Oundjian, at Roy Thomson Hall, Sept. 21.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Originally published in the Toronto Star<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a dirty little secret about opening night concerts. It is the one night of the year that has nothing to do with music.<\/p>\n

Sure the musicians are all there and the audience is hyped for a concert, but it is really about booking the glitziest star they can muster to match the enthusiasm for an upcoming season. The TSO wins this year\u2019s razzle-dazzle award for nabbing superstar soprano Ren\u00e9e Fleming, who returned to Toronto Wednesday night after a six-year absence from the orchestra.<\/p>\n

One of the finest lyric sopranos in the world, Fleming can pretty much do what she likes. One could only guess what her backstage rider might look like; one Gucci prom dress, a box of corn starch, seven Kadupul flowers, and 57 purple Skittles?<\/p>\n

Despite the baggage that comes with a showy gala like this, Fleming\u2019s voice was a combination of magic, agility and smooth cream. She backed it with an extraordinary humanity that audiences have long since fallen in love with. You feel her voice with a shiver. She is a fine singer-actor, too, and can work a crowd with the best of them.<\/p>\n

But with Koerner Hall just down the street, the question becomes one of fit for a voice like Fleming\u2019s at Roy Thomson Hall. The problem became painfully clear once she took the stage with Ravel\u2019s Sh\u00e9h\u00e9razade<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The piece sits in a fairly low register for a soprano and her voice was lost inside RTH\u2019s cavernous acoustics. While it is the job of the vocalist to find a way to reach the back of the room, it became a losing battle that probably should not have been fought in the first place.<\/p>\n

After intermission, things started to get better with a series of arias including Puccini\u2019s \u201cS\u00ec, mi chiamano Mim\u00ec\u201d from La Boh\u00e8me<\/em>. Donning a bouffant dress, Fleming stepped right into the role, dancing along with the solid TSO accompaniment. A savvy student of her audience, she filled the gaps with warmly received banter that eventually led to the lighter shade of Leoncavallo\u2019s \u201cMattinata.\u201d Singing playfully, she carried the concert favourite with grace and class.<\/p>\n

A pleasant surprise was an excerpt from William Walton\u2019s film score to Henry V<\/em>, \u201cTouch Her Soft Lips and Part.\u201d The TSO played masterfully well and, dare I say, might have even upstaged Fleming\u2019s carte blanche playlist.<\/p>\n

Toward the end was a strange pops section from The King and I<\/em> (Rodgers and Hammerstein). Singing with the aid of a microphone, Fleming\u2019s jazz background kicked right in, but that didn\u2019t help overcome the nagging struggle to hear her. There was also the matter of the jarring symmetry against the Neapolitan songs in the second half and, with the appearance of her low register again, even with the aid of the audience whistling along, her voice was last seen somewhere in Section C of the mezzanine.<\/p>\n

By and large, there were just too many sticks in the wheels to keep this concert moving along freely.<\/p>\n

Fleming closed with three encores, including \u201cSummertime,\u201d \u201cI Could Have Danced All Night\u201d, and \u201cO mio babbino caro.\u201d<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Kudos to the TSO for nabbing superstar soprano Ren\u00e9e Fleming for the 2016\/17 season opener, but Roy Thomson Hall’s acoustics nearly ruined the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,76,19,52],"tags":[2804,3360,3403],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/09\/TSO_Rene\u0301e-Fleming-credit-Dale-Wilcox.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-a4n","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38711"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38946,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38711\/revisions\/38946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38711"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=38711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}