“Moments” hardly does justice to the extraordinary artistry compiled here from 20-plus years of live recordings. Renée Fleming made her debut at New York’s hallowed Metropolitan Opera as the Countess in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in 1991 and opens this unmissable double album with a spine-tingling reading of the role’s deeply affecting “Dove sono”. The American soprano’s technical consistency, linguistic command, expressive insight and dramatic imagination are put to the test and never found wanting in works from across the lyric-soprano repertoire. She’s on breathtaking form in the title roles of Richard Strauss’ Arabella, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah and Dvořák’s Rusalka, backed to the hilt by the Met’s equally superb orchestra. Even without periodic ovations, you’ll feel the love coming Fleming’s way from the Met audience.
- Kathleen Battle, Plácido Domingo, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & James Levine
- Frederica von Stade
- Margaret Harshaw, Gloria Lind, James McCracken, Margaret Roggero, Marianne Schech, Hermann Uhde, Sandra Warfield, Fritz Stiedry, The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Wolfgang Windgassen, Kurt Böhme, Jean Madeira, Belen Amparan, Lawrence Davidson, Rosalind Elias, Osie Hawkins & Heidi Krall
- Riccardo Muti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Anita Rachvelishvili, Piero Pretti & Luca Salsi
- Eric Owens, Angel Blue, Frederick Ballentine, Alfred Walker, Latonia Moore, Golda Schultz, Ryan Speedo Green, Denyce Graves, David Robertson, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & The Metropolitan Opera Chorus
- Cecilia Bartoli, Jean-Yves Thibaudet & Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca
- Ambroise Thomas, Gaetano Donizetti, Gaspare Spontini, Georges Bizet, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Gustave Charpentier, Jules Massenet, Ludwig van Beethoven, Léo Delibes, Richard Wagner, Vincenzo Bellini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart & Maria Callas