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Climate change and classic arias: Renée Fleming in Saratoga Springs

Von , 16 August 2025

Here’s a metaphor you couldn’t make up. As Renée Fleming finished singing “O mio babbino caro” with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, I looked down and noticed my watch had stopped. How appropriate for a performer who, well into the fifth decade of her career, still demonstrates a vocal quality that sopranos half her age would envy! The passage of time seems to elude America’s diva. Fleming utterly convinced as the lovesick young girl imploring her father for permission to marry, her silvery high notes drifting into the crisp night air, and her style and stamina impressed throughout the rest of the evening’s generous program.

Renée Fleming with the Philadelphia Orchestra
© Erica Miller

Fleming delivered several of her calling cards throughout the two-hour concert: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s You’ll Never Walk Alone, which showed off a surprisingly luscious lower range, and “Musetta svaria sulla bocca viva” from Leoncavallo’s La bohème, a longtime favorite. But the bulk of the performance was given over to Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, an outgrowth of her Grammy-winning album from 2022. She spoke with sincerity about the urgent need for climate action and the preservation of the world’s natural resources, and she partnered with National Geographic to craft a 45-minute visual essay illuminating what’s at stake if humanity passes the point of no return on climate change.

The film itself, projected above the SPAC stage while Fleming sang beneath it, proved more distracting than elucidating. There were moments that bordered on kitsch, as when Fleming performed Burt Bacharach’s What the World Needs Now Is Love to a slideshow of baby animals frolicking with their parents. (I’m also not sure the song’s message resonated with Fleming’s theme – in the midst of climate disaster, don’t we need mountains and cornfields as much as love?) Although often striking, the images felt randomly assembled and disconnected from the selected songs. In a live concert setting, the strongest message should come through the performer herself.

Still, Fleming sang a wide range of music with distinction throughout the concert’s first half, from Handel’s “Care selve” to All Is Full of Love, by the Icelandic rock star Björk. She brought a pleasing pop sensibility to the bluegrass song Pretty Bird and winning earnestness to Kevin Puts’ setting of the Dorianne Laux poem Evening. Her performance of Canteloube’s Baïléro left me wishing she would tackle the complete Chants d’Auvergne.

Renée Fleming at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center
© Erica Miller

The music of John Kander made a strong impression after intermission, with Fleming’s moving performance of A Letter from Sullivan Ballou, a Civil War artifact made famous through Ken Burns’ documentary series. Fleming also exhibited a welcome sardonic humor in two songs from Kander’s underrated adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s dark comedy The Visit. The printed program concluded with The Diva, a witty and self-effacing parlor song written for Fleming by Andrew Lippa, which she cheekily described as “the closest I’ll get to hip-hop”.

Conductor Robert Moody led the Philadelphia Orchestra in two purely symphonic selections: a ragged reading of the Meistersinger prelude and a rousing rendition of Morton Gould’s American Salute. And Fleming implored the audience to join in on her encores: Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and I Could Have Danced All Night. Few in attendance possess a better high C than the lady onstage, but the collective spirit of the moment was undeniably charming.


Cameron’s accommodation was provided by Saratoga Performing Arts Center

***11
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“the passage of time seems to elude America’s diva”
Rezensierte Veranstaltung: Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga, am 15 August 2025
Händel, Atalanta HWV 35: Care selve
Muhly, Endless Space
Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Vorspiel zu Akt 1
Leoncavallo, La bohème: Musette svaria sulla bocca viva
Puccini, Gianni Schicchi: O mio babbino caro
Dickens, Pretty Bird
Canteloube, Chants d'Auvergne: Bailero
Schneider, Our Finch Feeder
Björk, All is Full of Love
Villa-Lobos, Floresta do Amazonas: Final
Shore, Film music from The Return of the King (Twilight and Shadow)
Puts, Evening
Green, Red mountains Sometimes Cry
Gould, American Salute
Kander, A Letter from Sullivan Ballou
Porter, Begin the Beguine
Kander, The Visit: Love and Love Alone
Rodgers, Carousel: You'll never walk alone
Lippa, The Diva
Cohen, Hallelujah
Loewe, My Fair Lady: I could have danced all night
Renée Fleming, Sopran
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Robert Moody, Musikalische Leitung
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