Renee Fleming: Broadway
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VARIOUS COMPOSERS
Renee Fleming: Broadway
Renee Fleming (soprano) / BBC Concert Orchestra, Rob Fisher
[ Decca / CD ]
Release Date: Sunday 10 February 2019
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Celebrating musical theatre, this album features a diverse array of great songs for the stage by composers including Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Pasek & Paul, and Rodgers & Hammerstein, as well as a special guest duet with the Hamilton, television and film star, Leslie Odom, Jr.
Fleming says: "The great, classic Broadway musicals were central to my childhood. I sang Eliza Doolittle twice before I was even out of high school. This repertoire is so rich, and the sheer quality of the music is so high, that it's been a joy to record these songs. And along with the growth of popular music, the sound of musical theatre has evolved over time. Composers like Jeanine Tesori, and Pasek & Paul, and even popular music icons like Sting, have enriched the genre. It's a living art form, enjoying a real boom right now, and it was a thrill for me to be able to include phenomenal songs that are absolutely current."
The new recording features a wide range of Broadway hits from the 1920s to the present, in sumptuous orchestrations (many commissioned specially for this album). Among the songs are "The Sound of Music", "The Glamorous Life" from A Little Night Music, "Tell Me on A Sunday" from Song and Dance, "Wonderful Guy" from South Pacific, "Fable" from The Light in the Piazza, and "So Big So Small" from Dear Evan Hansen. Fleming's collaborators include Broadway legend Rob Fisher as music supervisor and conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, as well as the incomparable bassist and jazz great Christian McBride, rising star pianist Dan Tepfer, and Grammy-winning producer David Frost.
"Curbing that opulent operatic soprano, pulling back on the head-voice and dropping the centre of gravity to more conversational tone in the middle range is key…and she's home free, swooning portamento and all...It's interesting that the numbers in which she opts for a jazzy take feel most comfortable…Not everything convinces me but there's enough here that does - and her love for the repertoire is palpable." Gramophone
"..an interesting selection of beautifully arranged numbers; Fleming inventively avoids the obvious, with selections ranging from Cole Porter's 1936 Red, Hot and Blue to Dear Evan Hansen" Opera Now
"All in all, then, a valuable disc with quite a lot of songs off the beaten track, which admirers of Renée Fleming, or of Broadway musicals in general, or both, should derive hours and hours of pleasure from." MusicWeb
Tracks:
'Fable' from The Light in the Piazza (Guettel)
'Loneliness of Evening' from South Pacific (Rodgers & Hammerstein)
'Children Will Listen/You've Got to be Taught' from Into the Woods/South Pacific (Sondheim/Rodgers & Hammerstein arr. Fisher), with guest star Leslie Odom, Jr.
'So Big So Small from Dear Evan Hansen (Pasek & Paul)
'Something Wonderful from The King and I (Rodgers & Hammerstein)
'Wonderful Guy from South Pacific (Rodgers & Hammerstein)
'Lay Down Your Head from Violet (Tesori/Crawley)
'Down in the Depths (on the Ninetieth Floor)' from Red, Hot and Blue (Porter)
'Love and Love Alone/Winter' from The Visit (Kander/Ebb)
'Dear Friend' from She Loves Me (Bock/Harnick)
'The Sound of Music' from The Sound of Music (Rodgers & Hammerstein)
'Unusual Way' from Nine (Yeston)
'Till There Was You' from The Music Man (Wilson)
'The Glamorous Life' from A Little Night Music (Sondheim)
'Tell Me on A Sunday' from Song and Dance (Lloyd Webber/Black)
'August Winds' from The Last Ship (Sting)
'All the Things You Are' from Very Warm for May (Kern/Hammerstein)
