TRACKLISTING

1. Haunted Heart (Dietz/Schwartz)
2. River (Joni Mitchell)
3. When did you Leave Heaven (Bullock/Whiting)
4. You’ve Changed (Cary/Fischer)
5. Answer Me
6. My Cherie Amour (Cosby/Rose/Wonder)
7. In My Life (Lennon/McCartney)
8. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Jimmy Webb)
9. Wozzeck/The Midnight Sun (Burke/Hampton/Mercer)
10. Liebst du um Schönheit (Mahler)
11. My One and Only Love/This is Always (Mellin/Wood)
12. Cancão do Amor
13. Psyché (Paladilhe)
14. Hard Time Come Again No More (Stephen Foster)

RECORDING INFORMATION

Renée Fleming is widely hailed as “the queen of lyric sopranos,” (Opera News). With countless roles performed and several critically acclaimed aria and opera recordings made in the nearly 20 years of her professional career, Renée Fleming, with her “fresh, lustrous voice of rare opulence” (Washington Post), is unique among singers of our time and has easily become “America’s soprano of choice” (New York Times).

Recognized as a risk-taker in her field, Ms. Fleming has created many roles for the operatic stage and has premiered numerous songs written for her, earning her the respect of colleagues and praise from the press. It is no surprise then, that Renée Fleming’s next recording will explore terrain that will be unfamiliar to many of her listeners, but is actually an integral part of what makes her the singer she is today. Decca are releasing a disc that Renée Fleming has wanted to create for nearly a decade. Haunted Heart is a very personal album of ballads, standards and popular songs performed here with the help of jazz mavericks Bill Frisell (guitar) and Fred Hersch (piano).

In her liner notes to the recording, Fleming writes,

“This is a project I have long dreamt of realizing. It is not only an exploration of some of the music that has always inspired me, but a personal journey back on a road not taken. With this record I want to share my love for a group of highly emotional and beautiful songs, irrespective of the labels of jazz, pop, or classical, while introducing you to my “other voice” and a style of singing to which I thought I would be dedicating my career, until circumstance put me decidedly in the classical arena. These songs have haunted my heart over the years, and my hope is that they will touch yours.”

Renée Fleming spent her undergraduate years at the State University of New York at Potsdam performing in a regular Sunday night gig with a jazz trio. “Not only did I gain invaluable performance experience,” Fleming recalls, “but this was where I first felt the power of connecting music and words; and also began to learn how to interact with an audience. Every weekend for more than two years, I learned to sing in the most intimate way possible, trying to do what a gifted jazz musician does so memorably: to reach to the deepest place inside and sing with real feeling, from the heart.”

Fleming’s undergraduate career culminated in a master class given by jazz legend, tenor saxophonist Jean-Baptiste “Illinois” Jacquet. “After I performed You’ve Changed,” she says, “I was amazed to see him wipe a tear from his eye. I was a great singer, he said - one of the greats. He urged me to come to New York and begin my career in jazz, so that I could also tour with his band.” Ultimately, Renée Fleming chose to follow the path to classical singing, but this facet of her voice has long been one she has wanted to revisit so this project is a fulfillment of that dream.

The range of the songs on Haunted Heart is a full octave below Fleming’s usual tessitura, making this a very different voice from what her listeners are used to hearing. This is not Renée Fleming singing jazz as an opera singer; this is Renée Fleming exploring a completely different, highly individual method for making music. This lower range, enables her to use as intimate and personal a sound as possible - almost a whisper. “Singing in this low register isn’t tiring or dangerous for my voice,” Fleming notes, “In fact, our sessions took place throughout the period in which I rehearsed Handel’s Rodelinda at the Metropolitan Opera, and I found them a relaxing vocal respite from the demands of baroque coloratura.”