Four-time Grammy® winning soprano Renée Fleming released her first full-length lieder album for almost two decades on 14 June. The release date coincides with her London musical theatre debut, performing the role of Margaret Johnson in the Tony-winning musical The Light In The Piazza at the Royal Festival Hall on 18 June.
Renée Fleming’s new album Lieder, spanning six decades of German song, features songs by Brahms, Schumann, and Mahler, each of whom bring Romantic poetry to life. Fleming is partnered by her long-standing artistic collaborator Hartmut Höll on piano for songs by Brahms, including the beloved Brahms’ “Lullaby”, and also for Schumann’s “Frauenliebe Und-Leben”. She is joined by Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic for a performance of Mahler’s “Rückert Lieder”.
The Light In The Piazza is directed by multiple Olivier Award winner Daniel Evans and also stars film and television star Dove Cameron and three-time Olivier Award winner Alex Jennings (National Theatre, The Crown). The new production features “the most intensely romantic score of any musical since West Side Story” (The New York Times) performed by Opera North’s 40-piece symphony orchestra. Set in Florence during the summer of 1953, this heart-wrenching love story invites us into the world of Margaret Johnson and her daughter Clara. As they take in the wonders of the city, a fateful gust of wind whisks Clara’s hat into the hands of local dreamer Fabrizio Naccarelli. It’s love at first sight, but Clara isn’t quite what she appears – soon they must all confront a secret that’s been kept in the shadows for far too long.
