(New York) While their movements and performances were limited by a certain coronavirus, the American soprano Renée Fleming and the Quebec conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin thought about tunes they could perform together, piano-voice, and they chose the theme of climate change.
“I’ve been thinking for years about how romantic poetry and musical literature framed every human experience,” explains the American soprano, “and of course I was horrified last year by Mother Nature, who was very clear in her discontent. “
Their collaboration gave Voice of Nature – The Anthropocene, at Decca Classics. The disc presents the very first recordings of three contemporary works as well as works by Fauré, Grieg, Liszt and Reynaldo Hahn.
Renée Fleming has not sung in public since the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, until June 2021. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, meanwhile, was largely limited to performances near his home in Montreal until last July, when he conducted the European Chamber Orchestra in a Beethoven Symphony Cycle in Baden-Baden, Germany.
The conductor and singer chose the repertoire largely by exchanging text messages and voice messages.
“Slowing down like that, I think we artists made us think about what is important, what priorities and how much time we have to set aside,” explains the musical director of the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Orchester métropolitain de Montréal.
“For me, doing a project like this, with an artist like Renée, whom I love and admire so much, I need more time to rehearse and to really soak up the pieces. “
The recording sessions were held at Verizon Hall in Philadelphia from April 27 to 1er last May. Renée Fleming, who performed her last repertoire role in May 2017, tackles new works here, including that of composer Kevin Puts.
Puts also composed the music for the opera The Hours, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner, which was already brought to the big screen in 2002. The work will be premiered, with Nézet-Séguin and Fleming, at the Philadelphia Orchestra on March 18 in a concert version, then the opera will be staged at the Met during the 2022-2023 season.