Arabella Fleming

“…Fleming looks fabulous, knows and can deliver good German, and can sing this role at least as well as anyone on the planet at the moment. But it's a shame that all concerned did not wait for a genuinely new production to preserve. This run-through of an old staging… is fluent and energetic… but it is not an evening pregnant with dramatic insight. In the pit Welser-Möst is an efficient, unemotional guide to the score…” (Gramophone Magazine)

2014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orchestral, operatic and lied master composer, Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Arabella (premiered 1933, Dresden) was the last of the half dozen Strauss works to feature a libretto by the great Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This production, from the most recent Salzburg Easter Festival is, after Capriccio, the second of three Richard Strauss operas C Major is releasing in honor of the composers birth, life and work. The star-laden cast includes soprano Renèe Fleming, baritone Thomas Hampson, Albert Dohmen (Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, MET) and Gabriela Beaková (Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden). With Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, the music of Richard Strauss is in the best of hands. (ORF) Thielemann gets the best out of the cast…especially Renée Fleming with her luxurious soprano.

This first-ever, specially remastered collection compiles highlights chosen by Renée of her “most magical experiences”, captured live on stage in this pinnacle of opera houses. Produced by GRAMMY-winning David Frost, the collection features duets with Cecilia Bartoli, Susan Graham, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Samuel Ramey, Bryn Terfel & more. Since her 1991 debut when she stepped in for Felicity Lott, Renée has performed on the MET stage over 250 times and describes the MET as “my musical home, the theater where I feel welcome amongst friends – backstage, onstage, and in the audience.” Renée will return to the MET on 22 November for the world premiere work by Kevin Puts, The Hours, with Joyce DiDonato & Kelli O’Hara.