Renée Fleming review — the night was hers

★★★★★
“Is there an ending that isn’t trivial?” So asks the Countess Madeleine in the final lines of her farewell scene from Strauss’s final opera, Capriccio. The countess and Strauss both knew how to make an exit, and so does the American soprano Renée Fleming, who is now elegantly winding down her career.

Was this gala concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra her farewell to the UK? It’s certainly plausible (Fleming has nothing planned at Covent Garden and her run of Der Rosenkavalier there in 2016 had a valedictory feel). True to Fleming’s brand of starriness, the night had no musical fireworks (although the singer’s Vivienne Westwood dress did look worryingly flammable) but it was very far from trivial.

With its twist of silk and cream, her voice has always been perfectly cut for Straussian cloth. What has developed over time, however, is a separate layer of artistry. Fleming’s Madeleine was a mini-marvel, whether she was simply listening to the (impeccable) orchestral performance that introduced her scene, or the telling way in which she characterised the character’s own whirling emotions contrasted with the words of the sonnet penned by one of Madeleine’s rival admirers. After that a fitting encore seemed impossible but Strauss’s Morgen solved the dilemma, exquisitely done by the soprano and with the night’s other star, concertmaster Pieter Schoeman, in gracious support.

Verdi, less of a Fleming calling card, was the soprano’s other offering. The Willow Song and Ave Maria from Otello — Desdemona’s farewell to her maid, knowing what fate is coming — was delivered with the singer’s trademark languor, but the expressive detail that made it haunting was moment by moment. This close focus was matched by the orchestra, led by the conductor Enrique Mazzola. A charismatic musician, Mazzola added lustre to the night with rarities: a much more athletic spritz of Otello in Verdi’s hardly performed ballet music from the opera, and Dvorak’s Othello overture, operatic in scope and cracklingly delivered. Yet it was — and had to be — Fleming’s night.