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When she returned for the second half in a new, sparkling outfit, another fan yelled, \u201cLove the dress\u201d to which Fleming quipped, \u201cThank you. I always say that sequins are like martinis. If it\u2019s after four o\u2019clock, you\u2019re all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her upcoming album, \u201cThe Fiddle and the Drum,\u201d due May 29, Fleming gave the audience a glimpse of its bluegrass-inspired content with the title track. The 1969 antiwar song by Joni Mitchell, which Fleming noted sadly is newly relevant, was originally sung a cappella. Sunday\u2019s version featured atmospheric bass notes from Barnatan and a countermelody created by Lark.<\/p>\n
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Also in this American-inspired set was an excerpt from J. Todd Frazier\u2019s oratorio about the life of Thomas Jefferson, \u201cWe Hold These Truths.\u201d The piece has a spoken introduction, and then a vocal setting of the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Frazier\u2019s music is pretty but relatively uninspiring for the words it underlines.<\/p>\n
More successful was John Kander\u2019s 1994 setting of a letter from a Civil War soldier, \u201cA Letter from Sullivan Ballou.\u201d Fleming has sung this piece on several occasions, always to great effect as it plays to all her strengths. Here, she became the plain-spoken character believably. Her incredible diction made the wordy sentences clear, and her legato phrasing tamed Kander\u2019s necessarily long melodic lines. In this singer\u2019s hands, the song works and stirs emotions.<\/p>\n
Lark then played her own solo, \u201cAppalachian Fantasy,\u201d in which she takes a Schubert song, a Brahms tune and \u201cBonaparte\u2019s Retreat,\u201d and weaves them into a bluegrass fiddle piece. Barnatan, who had delivered an astonishing and brilliant rendition of 14-year-old Mendelssohn\u2019s \u201cRondo capriccioso\u201d in the first half, introduced the final set with an equally bravura take on Gershwin\u2019s \u201cI Got Rhythm,\u201d as arranged by Earl Wild.<\/p>\n
That led to the musical theater section and a singalong to \u201cI Could Have Danced All Night.\u201d Tony Award-nominated for the 2018 Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s \u201cCarousel,\u201d Fleming is a natural for this repertory.<\/p>\n
She finished the program in a perfectly salon-like manner with \u201cThe Diva,\u201d a fun number written for her by Broadway veteran Andrew Lippa. Paradoxically, the song mostly celebrates the soprano for her un-diva qualities but does contain the memorable line, \u201cWho else could marshal an impartial Marschallin?\u201d<\/p>\n
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For the encore, the singer added Strauss\u2019 ineffable song \u201cMorgen\u201d (Tomorrow), with Lark playing the instrumental melody. In Fleming\u2019s hands, it expressed a sense of quiet ecstasy that was worlds away from standard diva fare, but just right for this wonderful artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ren\u00e9e Fleming performed at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday, May 3, with pianist Inon Barnatan and violinist Tessa Lark.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[329,7,331,332,330,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-299451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-california","tag-classical","tag-east-bay","tag-music","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}