"Thais" From The Met...via Theatercast

Some years ago while attending the French Piano Institute in Paris I heard Renee Fleming at the Bastille Opera in "Manon". I thought at the time she had the perfect voice for Massenet..creamy middle voice...an extension into coloratura..and always elegant musicianship. Having never heard "Thais", I was eager to see how I would react to this production. As far as sets and staging it was very conventional, and at times was rather uninspired, expecially the palace in the second act. It took forever to change the sets and that took away from the fluidity of sequence. Nothing remotely resembled an Egyptian setting, but at least they avoided the pitfall of making it all resemble a church pageant, (although some stray palm trees almost went in that direction). What was impressive was Fleming's emotional and direct "Thais", sung will all of the above, but some years later with an added maturity and insight. This is a great role for her, and she conquered the exotic vocal color, projected in a really difficult vocal line that requires nerves of steel to accomplish the quick chages of register, and also the high tessitura of the last scene. If you share the stage with Fleming at this point in her career, you had better have your shots in order. Thomas Hampson was ardent in expression and commanding in figure. What was lacking was real vocal beauty. I have always felt he is more of a lieder singer, and some of this quality came through. But I rarely felt swept up in sheer vocal opulence. The opera as a whole was quite wonderful, and one felt Massenet's sense of theater in the way the whole affair built towards the final scene. He was the composer par excellence for divas of the day, and no one mixed sex and the Bible to better effect. Renee Fleming is surely at her peak, and its exciting to hear her any chance you get.