Great Performances Returns With Season 15

One of America’s foremost voices helps launch a new season of excellence in the performing arts

Since so many avenues for the arts have been closed for the past year, Renée Fleming is glad television is bringing her back to the business of opera. The internationally celebrated, much-honoured soprano offers a concert that opens season 15 of PBS’s Great Performances at the Met franchise. Fleming performs works by composers including Puccini, Massenet, Handel and Korngold at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., launching the latest round of the series-within-a-series that will present a total of 12 new programs this season (all hosted by fellow soprano Christine Goerke).

“All of these places are relatively close to home for each of us,” Fleming says, “and the fact that they were able to find historic halls and unusual venues makes it even more interesting, I think.” As for her Great Performances site, “[Igor] Stravinsky had a relationship with the family [that owned the building],” Fleming notes, “and his pieces were composed there and premiered there. That gives it a musical history in addition to the Washington history.”

While she’s grateful to have the PBS showcase, Fleming allows that choosing music for it was “a nightmare. I’m looking to provide an experience that reaches as many people as possible, so a little bit of something for everyone is typically in my planning… but it also has to be comfortable for me, with a repertoire that I enjoy to sing. I was especially happy with how this [show] turned out, but there was a lot of tweaking along the way.”

Fleming maintains that making her musical selections can be even tougher when she’s on tour: “I might be in a major capital where people hear music every day, so they want something challenging or unusual. And then, I might be someplace where they rarely get to hear anything, and I want to bring my ‘greatest hits.’ Balancing the two, and making sure everything is to my standard, is always a challenge.”

The Tony nominee has stayed busy with such activities as hosting the online interview series Music and Mind Live, and serving as artistic adviser to Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She appreciates having such duties after the coronavirus pandemic sidelined a part-American, part-European 2020 recital tour she says she was looking forward to greatly, but she sang for dignitaries at an event preceding January’s presidential inauguration.

“This whole past year has been so devastating for our industry,” says Fleming, who intends to release a new album in the near future. “That The Met can do an entire series like this [PBS program] and have it packaged so gorgeously, it’s a privilege to be part of it.”

Great Performances at the Met debuts Friday, March 19th at 9 p.m. on KCTS