RENÉE FLEMING ON HER NEW BOOK, HER UPCOMING PERFORMANCE AT SYMPHONY HALL, HER AFFINITY FOR THE BERKSHIRES, AND MORE
FALL 24
By Dr. Joshua Sherman
RENÉE FLEMING is a five-time Grammy® Award winner (18-time nominee), winner of the U.S. National Medal of Arts, and a 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree. She has performed at such extraordinary and varied occasions as the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, the Diamond Jubilee concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, and the Super Bowl.
In 2023, Renée was appointed by the World Health Organization as a goodwill ambassador for arts and health, and she is known as a leading advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience. She has presented her own program “Music and Mind” in more than 50 cities around the world—and the corresponding book, also titled Music and Mind, was published by Penguin Random House this year.
In early July 2024, I arrived at Tanglewood for a scheduled interview with Renée Fleming. I parked my car and opened my door to the sound of a glorious, soaring voice. I looked around the empty parking lot for speakers, only to realize I wasn’t listening to pre-recorded music through a sound system; I was listening to Renée Fleming rehearsing her “All-Strauss” program with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons. I stood there, mesmerized by the sound of her voice and the music in the air. I crossed through the Main Gate, walked over to The Shed, and sat in on her rehearsal.
When I joined her in the Green Room backstage, Renée was friendly, articulate, poised, funny, and down-to-earth. It’s easy to understand why she has been so successful in so many arenas. Here are excerpts from our talk that day:
JS: My parents always taught me that the best moments in life are the unexpected moments, and I must admit, I didn’t expect to sit in on your rehearsal this morning. It was glorious to hear you sing Strauss. At what age did you first discover your affinity for Strauss—and who introduced you to his music?
RF: I was in my early 20s, actually. Andreas Delfs at the Aspen Music Festival said, “Let’s do some scenes from Der Rosenkavalier.” We did a couple of things, and he said, “You’re going to be a great Marschallin someday.” I said, “What’s a Marschallin?” I really didn’t know anything about Strauss. I thought I was going to just be a high lyric soprano. And I really didn’t expect, after 10 years of singing Mozart, that, in fact, it was a natural progression to move into the Strauss repertoire that I then inhabited. It felt like such a better fit and a natural fit, you know, the Marschallin, and Capriccio and Arabella. Those three roles were a calling card for me, but also a joy. They felt like three versions of the same woman, which I found interesting at different stages in life. So, I really stuck with that.
JS: Last year—and last minute—you stepped in for Yo-Yo Ma at Tanglewood and saved the day! How does it feel to be back in the Berkshires?
RF: Talk about unexpected moments! To have done that last summer with the Strauss Lieder, and to have Andris turn to me and say, “Let’s do it again,” it’s just so lovely. And The Washington Post named our performance as one of the “10 Best of the Year.” One almost never gets on those lists! So, that was really a good sign. And I love working with Andris. There’s a flexibility and a kind of creativity about the way he treats music and conducts music that’s so refreshing and joyful. And it’s always great to be back in the Berkshires. I have, actually, a long history here. I first started coming here when I was a Juilliard student because I married a guy who was from Pittsfield. My children love it here. We have a very long, in-depth kind of love for this whole area. And I feel like this is a cultural mecca. I really love it. Last year, I discovered the Berkshire Botanical Garden, and I also bought a sculpture from The Mount’s sculpture show in the summer. I’m going to do some hiking this weekend. There’s just so much to do. And, of course, Tanglewood.
JS: I know you will be performing The Brightness of Light, composed by Pulitzer Prizewinner Kevin Puts, with the BSO at Symphony Hall in Boston in November. The piece, which is based on the love letters between Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, received its premiere at Tanglewood in 2019. Tell me about the piece and what attracted you to it.
RF: We’ve done the piece with 10 to 15 orchestras now, and it’s wonderful to bring it full circle with the BSO. First of all, the media that was created tells the story of their life and their marriage, so it’s just fascinating for the public. And they don’t just get to see her paintings, they get to see the nude photographs that he took of her, and you learn so much about them. It was Jamal Rossi, the Dean of Eastman, who asked if he could commission a piece for me with Kevin. And I said, “Sure.” I knew Kevin had had success already with a couple of his operas. And I fell in love with it because he was able to create music that is tremendous, especially his orchestration. It’s that combination of accessibility and quality that I always look for in composers because I care about the audience. Every time I program, I’m thinking about the audience. And, of course, our next project was The Hours, which we took to the Met, which is really an historic success. It’s been a joy to work with him.
JS: I have a very specific question about The Hours. Michael Cunningham, the writer of the book, was a guest at last year’s Authors Guild Foundation’s WIT Literary Festival here in the Berkshires, and he talked about his experience with both the film adaptation and the opera. I’m curious: Did you read the book and watch the film for research, or did you avoid them so as not to be influenced by them?
RF: It was my idea to do the piece. I had seen the film. And I could hear the music. After performing Rosenkavalier for so many years, I could hear the three women singing a trio. I didn’t think Peter Gelb at the Met would accept the idea, but to his credit, he immediately said, “Yes, I want that.” So, yes, I did see the film and loved it. And then, I eventually read the book. And I read Mrs. Dalloway in preparation for the opera. But we also all got to know Michael Cunningham pretty well. He’s a wonderful writer, and what an incredible book he created. I mean, The Hours is just extraordinary. So imaginative to bring those people together.
JS: We’re going to move on to Music and Mind. But, before we do, I have to ask a fun question. You were the first classical musician to perform the national anthem at the Super Bowl in 2014. Can you share some of the behind-the-scenes logistics that went into performing at the Super Bowl? For example, did you have a hand in the song’s arrangement?
RF: Absolutely! It’s really interesting and unusual. There was somebody behind-the scenes involved in television production who kept pushing for me. The fact that I was asked was already somewhat miraculous, as we know, but here’s what nobody knows: You have to produce it yourself. You have to figure out how you want to do it, and you have to raise money for it. The NFL does not pay. They see it as the best publicity and biggest audience you’ll ever have, right? Still, for me, I didn’t want to just walk out and sing acapella. I knew I wanted some kind of orchestration, and I wanted a choir with me. I didn’t want to be out there by myself trying to maintain pitch relationships in a song that, as we now know, is really difficult. So, Matt Ringel from Red Light Management, who used to be at IMG, helped me with funding for the orchestration, and the New Jersey Symphony played it. We ended up being in New Jersey, so it was really wonderful all the way around. I was just absolutely thrilled. And then I reached out to Vera Wang, who’s a friend of mine. She just did my Kennedy Center Honors dress, too. I knew that she was used to doing athletic wear for skaters, and it was supposed to be incredibly cold, so she did a fabulous job. In fact, the Smithsonian called me the next day and said, “We want the dress.” So, that’s how it went. By the way, this all had to happen in secret. I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t tell a soul. And I knew that I had to prepare. There were several neat things about it. One is the rehearsal. They know how hard this performance is for people because there’s a six-second delay on what you’re hearing and seeing. They want you to be ready for that. And they want you to be so ready that they had Black Hawk helicopters flying over during the rehearsal. What they couldn’t prepare me for was the sound of the audience and the roaring of the audience, so that was distracting. But I really worked at home for months to make sure that no matter what happened, I could sing the national anthem. There were three other little things. One is walking on the field, seeing how enormous those men are in their cleats. I had high heels on, too, walking on that turf. And being able to do that, it was surreal. Second, the size of the crowd. You can’t fully prepare for that because there’s nothing else you’ll ever do in your life that’s like it. The third thing, living in New York my whole adult life, is that we went through the tunnel with a police escort and no traffic. They just shut off the tunnel. So that was an incredible experience.
JS: Thanks so much for sharing that! I’m so glad I asked. OK. Switching gears. We’re going to talk about the book Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, which you curated and edited. Before we do, let’s first discuss your general interest in the subject because it is obviously a passion I share. When I decided to pursue a career in medicine, I instinctively knew that many of the skills I had developed in the arts (including problem solving, communication skills, listening skills, attention to detail, and group dynamics) could be applied to patient care in a meaningful way. But many people I encountered outside the fields of the arts and sciences were skeptical. In the book, you refer to music’s impact on health and wellness as being treated as “soft science”—until neuroscientists started to take it seriously. What has your experience been—in terms of positive reactions or skepticism—from the medical community, the arts community, and those outside of both fields?
RF: It’s really been mostly positive. I’m an advocate. I don’t pretend to be anything more than that. I’m not a scientist. I would say at this point, doing this now for six or seven years, I know a little about a lot of things. I also have encountered some skepticism, but people are very respectful to me, as well. And I’m also typically presenting to performing arts audiences, and we as performers and people who love the arts “get it” naturally. But science is now putting real money behind the research, and that’s a major game changer because it validates the work that people have been doing for a long time. The ultimate goal—and I think we’re getting there—is to have the arts embedded in healthcare because the benefits are tremendous. It’s low cost, it’s not pharmaceutical, and it’s not invasive, and frankly, integrated medicine has taught us that we need to treat the whole person and their families and the ecosystem of healthcare. If we want to be truly successful, you can’t just fix body parts anymore.
JS: The authors in the book include such varied talents as Yo-Yo Ma, Anna Deavere Smith, and Rosanne Cash, among others. The essays explore the connection between the arts and sciences, and, specifically, music on health, wellness, and the human experience. You’ve said it before—and you just said it to me—that you believe the arts should be embedded in healthcare. I’d love to hear more of your specific vision for that. In other words, if I could wave my magic wand and integrate the arts in our healthcare system, what does that look like to Renée Fleming?
RF: Well, there are a couple of ways. One is the creative arts therapists who are licensed and have specific training that works incredibly well for certain real health conditions, whether it’s disorders of aging like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other dementias, or whether it’s childhood development. But, for sure, I think creative art studios should be in every children’s hospital. Because with children, you don’t want them to be hugely sedated. You want them to have a sense of trust. You want their families to feel like they can be there for a kid who has cancer. My favorites are intonation therapy, which is a way of using the plasticity of the brain to regain speech after stroke or after traumatic brain injury. These are things that are really proven and solid. There’s a great body of research behind them.
JS: I believe I saw a video of Gabby Giffords relearning through intonation therapy.
RF: Exactly! So, that’s something that should be reimbursable, and it is—in 12 states. There’s another finding that has now been proven: If you have terrible postpartum depression, joining a choir makes you better. There’s a whole social component to this that we understand now. We’ve never been more divided as people in my lifetime. All of these artistic experiences throughout our history as human beings were what brought us together, whether it was drumming or chanting or dancing, and they still work. So, these kinds of offerings, and these kinds of initiatives can help people get better from whatever it is that’s ailing them. There’s so much to learn, but I think if you read the evolution chapter in my book, that, to me, was my way in to understanding it because it didn’t make sense to me either in the beginning.
JS: Among the many comments on your book is a beautiful quote from Sting: “At a time when the bonds of our common humanity are being stretched to the limits, at the same time as the intensifying stresses on our personal well-being, Renée’s book is a timely reminder that music is the meta language that connects all individuals and spans all cultures, religions, and races. Music has never been more important.” Like Sting, I believe that music is the universal connector. With that thought in mind, I’d actually like to ask you the reverse: Do you feel your exploration into the world of medicine has changed your approach as an artist, or your opinion on the gravity of the arts?
RF: Well, I try to share all these tidbits with my audience now because typically when I’m touring, I’m always talking to the audience, so I think they enjoy it. I think they love learning in this shared experience. I often say, “Our brain waves are aligning.” In a musical experience, we’ve signed up to sit together for a period of time. And studies have shown that what people really want to do is sit at a table and be with friends and family, which is how these arts were created. People used to eat dinner during an opera and talk through it. I think that, frankly, performing arts venues should take on the role of community centers in our cities. We need it. We really, desperately need it. In other words, adding a social component to what we do as performers and letting people connect in a positive way. These computers we walk around with all the time have taken so much of our free time. We used to wait in line or drive the car, and we had nothing to do but daydream. And daydreaming is where our creativity comes from. So, these are the kinds of things I share with people. And coming to a performance and listening to music is one way of doing just that!
Renée Fleming at Symphony Hall
Andris Nelsons conducts Mozart and Puts with soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry at Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony Hall on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 21, 22, and 23. Painter Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband Alfred Stieglitz tell their love story in Kevin Puts’ poignantly romantic The Brightness of Light, a BSO commission composed for Fleming. Wendall Harrington designed the accompanying lush projections based on images from O’Keeffe’s life and work. The program opens with two high-spirited Mozart works dating from his early Vienna years. bso.org
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