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I was constantly being pushed toward a European ideal of what it means to be a classical or opera singer, let's say in the Renata Tebaldi mode. I reject that.

Renee Fleming

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Renee Fleming
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: February 14
Musician
Opera Singer
Indiana
Pennsylvania
Renee Fleming
Toward
Rejects
Means
Singer
Mean
Opera
European
Singers
Mode
Ideal
Pushed
Ideals
Reject
Constantly
Classical

More quotes by Renee Fleming

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Music was language in our house. It was air.....I feel certain that if I absorbed any lessons at all in the first months and years of my life, they must have been about the work that went into making a beautiful sound.
Renee Fleming
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When I sing, the sound is a totally different range, color, all of it. It's all about the breath. You take in a breath and you make a sound.
Renee Fleming
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A lot of bad behavior in singers is caused by nerves.
Renee Fleming
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We are unique, each human voice, not because we are completely self-generated, but because of who we choose to assemble the countless factors that made us.
Renee Fleming
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Your brain has a music room, and evolution would not have gone to the trouble of designing that if it didn't have some benefits. So, that suggests to me that we and our ancestors have had music as a central part of our experience for eons. And we're just beginning to understand how that might be. I think that's fascinating.
Renee Fleming
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Music enabled me as a fragile young person to give voice to emotions I could barely name, and how it enables me to give my voice the unique and mysterious power to speak to others.
Renee Fleming
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My whole career I played these girls sort of 18 to 23.
Renee Fleming
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No voice teacher can be all things to all people. You have to gain information from whatever sources you can. You have to listen.
Renee Fleming
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While it's a fact that a voice begins with natural talent, any talent must be nurtured, cajoled, wrestled with pampered, challenged, and, at every turn, examined.
Renee Fleming
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My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.
Renee Fleming
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I cannot imagine a more satisfying calling than my own: beauty, humanity, and history every day, combined with the cathartic joy of singing.
Renee Fleming
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At this stage in my career, I don't have to take any big risks. You want to take a calculated risk, not one that leads to people saying 'yes, but there was that one time when she made that big mistake.' It's always a shame when that happens, especially if you've gotten by for decades without anything hugely tragic.
Renee Fleming
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I was always a very good student.
Renee Fleming
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I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.
Renee Fleming
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Singers can also get away with a lot based on youth, strength and enthusiasm, only to find ten years later that what was once just a niggling problem has brought their careers to an end.
Renee Fleming
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I have not changed with the accomplishments. I've remained the same. If I had changed, great. You know, but I haven't.
Renee Fleming
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In a way, being an opera singer is like being a very romantic sixteen-year-old who falls in love with great passion and conviction every month.
Renee Fleming
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My worry is that opera will become an historic art form as opposed to a living, breathing thing.
Renee Fleming
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With classical singing you have to put out so much air - you project, you emit force.
Renee Fleming
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A lot of performers don't want to leave the circuit, the European opera house circuit, partly because most singers don't sing many concerts, or at least not while they are in their prime.
Renee Fleming