April 04, 2008, Renee reigns in Mexico City, By Jim Johnston

With the overwhelming success of the recent opera competition at the Teatro Ángela Peralta, San Miguel is poised to become the center of a new wave of enthusiasm for the art of fine singing.

For anyone who has experienced the emotionally expansive thrill of great opera (or who hopes to), this is good news. So, as a follow-up to my recent column on opera in Mexico City, I offer a review of the concert given by American soprano Renee Fleming at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

For those unfamiliar with Ms. Fleming, a visit to her website (www.reneefleming.com) will clue you in to one of the reigning divas of the day (if you haven’t heard the voice, you may have seen her in an ad for Rolex watches). She’s talented, glamorous, rich and famous.

The sold-out concert on May 28 was her first appearance in Mexico. To paraphrase Julius Caesar: she came, she sang, she conquered. She wore two satin gowns (champagne-colored for the first half, scarlet after intermission), as elegant and rich-looking as the voice sounded.

The program consisted of arias and songs by Verdi, Puccini, Strauss, Dvorak, Massenet, Gershwin and Lerner, interspersed with various orchestral bon-bons. The voice is creamy and smooth, without rough edges, like warm honey being poured slowly from a porcelain pitcher. It is not a big voice, although it easily reached the upper levels of the hall, with a resonance that came from deep within. The most successful pieces—Dvorak’s opera Rusalka, Massenet’s Thais, Puccini’s Tosca—were arias that unfolded slowly, giving the voice time to spin and stretch its seductive sound. Three orchestral songs by Richard Strauss showed her penchant for this composer’s work (in the press conference a few days earlier, she said Strauss was her favorite composer). For Gershwin’s Summertime, she managed to channel her inner black mama, producing a darker sound that worked well (the audience loved it). The only weak spot was “I could have danced all night” from My Fair Lady, an odd choice for her final number, which lay too low for

her and was not fully audible. Encores by Cilea and Strauss showed her voice even more relaxed and refulgent than in the scheduled program. For her final encore, she repeated Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro” which she had marred by a rough beginning the first time. Her second try was as close to divine as singing gets—Puccini would be smiling in opera heaven.

This was not a concert of operatic frenzy; there were no moments of near-hysteria or dare-devil artistry (check out Maria Callas if you want to know what this means). Fleming’s qualities are clarity, poise, elegance and grace. They were all satisfyingly on display for this concert.

If interested in joining or supporting Ópera de San Miguel, please email operadesanmiguel@hotmail.com.

Jim Johnston, a 10-year resident of San Miguel, now lives in Mexico City. He is author of Mexico City: an Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler, available on Amazon.com.

What’s happening in DF?

The 24th Annual Festival de Mexico in el Centro Historico kicks off April 10, with hundreds of free and ticketed activities all over the city. Jazz, opera, theater, museum exhibitions, film screenings—it’s a great time to head to the Distrito Federal. Some highlights include:

Opening night festivities on April 10 at Palacio de Bellas Artes include a presentation of the opera, Jenufa. From famous Czech composer, Leoš Janácek, this is his first piece to be presented in Mexico.

Goran Bregovic, composer and guitarist originally from Bosnia-Herzegovina, famous for his participation in the scoring of films by famed director Emir Kusturica, will close the festival April 27 in the Zócalo.