Matthew Gurewitsch on Renée Fleming

"In 'Verismo' … she concentrates on the 'young school' of Italians who followed in the wake of Verdi. Balancing 7 tracks by the grand master Puccini … are 10 thoroughly unfamiliar selections from composers remembered as one-trick ponies. Pietro Mascagni is represented not by 'Cavalleria Rusticana' but by 'Iris' and 'Lodeletta'; Alfredo Catalani, by an aria from 'La Wally' but not the familiar one. A risqué showstopper from Riccardo Zandonai’s 'Conchita' wins out over his swooning 'Francesca da Rimini.' Ruggero Leoncavallo, of 'Pagliacci' fame, is heard from in excerpts from his 'La Bohème' and from 'Zazà.' The scene from 'Zazà,' running some 10 minutes, is the album’s most extended and unusual offering. Zazà, a music-hall performer, calls on her lover only to discover from his little daughter … that he is two-timing her as a happily married family man. … Fallen women loom large in verismo, and in the minds of many opera fans their music cries out for sobbing, heart-on-sleeve emotionalism. Instead Ms. Fleming ennobles it with her cool classicism. … 'I just work by hook or by crook,' she said" ("Curiosity Spurred the Singers," New York Times, 10/25/09).