A Recital with Renée Fleming -Blu-ray-

Product Description This recital is Renée Fleming's very personal homage to Fin de Siècle Vienna. At the turn of the last century, the capital of the Austrian Empire was also one of the cultural centres for the fine arts and, in particular, for music. The city of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, a melting pot of cultures and musical traditions, attracted gifted musicians and composers alike and provided the perfect soil for much of the greatest music of that time. With this selection of works by Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) and Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), combined with more progressive songs by Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942), Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), Renée Fleming presents to us the full variety of this unique epoch. The venue of her recital with Maciej Pikulski at the piano is, of course, the Golden Hall of the Musikverein Vienna. Review "In an age of instant gratification and overnight (YouTube) success, enduring artists like Renée Fleming are a rare breed. The singer, currently in her mid-50s, epitomizes the slow-burn. At the age when many sopranos are considering retirement, Fleming is in peak form, defying any tarnishing of the upper register as well as the visual impact of middle age." --Robert Tomas, The Whole Note, December 2014 "It takes moxie for an American singer--no matter how big a superstar--to present a Viennese-themed liederabend at Vienna's Musikverein. Recitals of this nature suit the current state of Fleming's voice...and makes her better suited to intimate evenings such as this one." --Opera News, February 2015