Whether or not Renée Fleming will ever be a great Handelian as are, say, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Janet Baker, and Julianne Baird, remains to be seen. She certainly is a great singer with a great voice, a voice that apparently can do anything: it is healthy from about the C below the staff to an E-flat above high-C, her tone is always pure and true, she copes with difficult coloratura with panache and accuracy, her breath control is admirable, she makes what she does seem easy, she seems fearless. And she has a real trill. So it isn’t a matter of whether she has the notes, it’s what she does with them. In recent years she has developed mannerisms galore, some of which are not entirely out of place in Romantic-era opera. Sliding from note to note too emphatically, scooping into higher notes, and flattening a pitch for effect are all devices that, when used very sparingly and correctly, can be effective. Fleming has been overdoing them and the results have been annoying.
Perhaps conductor Harry Bicket is a wizard, or it could be that singing with a period-instrument band in conjunction with a Baroque specialist has somewhat tamed her bad habits, but this disc is a great success. The small Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment plays with warmth and style and Bicket finds just the right tempos and phrasing for each aria. Almost all of the arias here have been recorded often (with the exception of one unrecorded beauty from Lotario and a relative rarity from Alexander Balus), and Fleming stands up well against the competition. Even the very familiar “Lascia ch’io pianga” is treated freshly; Bicket does not allow Fleming to milk it the way Bartoli does, and it’s all the more lovely for the restraint. “O sleep why dost thou leave me” is long-breathed and smooth as silk, and “Ombra mai fu”, unfortunately shorn of its recitative, is sung as simply as it should be. Bicket keeps tempos on the swift side (allowing little time for scooping) and “V’adoro pupille” is therefore not milked dry either, while “Da tempeste…” is dispatched with almost reckless coloratura (but not as staggering as Sills’ performance) and contains a terrific turn on a high E-flat.
Of course there are moments here and there where Fleming indulges her plush voice a bit much, but in general this is more Handelian than we might have guessed. Her fans–even those who love the overdone portamentos–will love this, and frankly, so will everyone else. Stick with Bicket, Renée; he might make a great Handel singer out of you yet.
