Haunted Heart

Haunted Heart is one of those albums that could very easily go either way, and as you listen through Fred Hersch's gorgeous piano introduction at the beginning of the title track, which opens the disc, you might find yourself getting a little bit anxious as you wait for the singing to start: how is Renée Fleming, one of the most acclaimed young singers on the opera scene today, going to approach this highly unusual program of jazz standards, lieder, 20th century opera excerpts, country songs, and vintage pop numbers? Is she going to give them the respect they deserve, or toss them off like a slumming diva looking for a quick crossover cash-in? Is she going to treat their texts and melodies with insight and sensitivity, or use them as an easy vehicle for virtuosic display? Then she starts singing, and you simultaneously relax (yes, she's serious about this music) and sit up and take notice (wait a minute, didn't she used to be a soprano?). The fact is, Fleming was a jazz singer before she got serious about Romantic and Baroque opera, and the lessons she learned at the feet of Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday have obviously not left her. She spends most of her time on this album singing about an octave lower than her usual range, and this version of her voice is a revelation — rich, dark, throaty, and powerful. While her classical training is obvious in the ease with which she negotiates and elaborates on the sometimes intricate melodic lines of these songs, her Southern roots are just as conspicuous — just listen to her having her way with the vowels on "When Did You Leave Heaven?," a song on which guitarist Bill Frisell's accompaniment is heart-rendingly perfect. Her collaboration with Hersch on a radical overhaul of the Lennon and McCartney classic "In My Life" leaves the song both nearly unrecognizable and deeply touching, and her straightforward rendition of the Mahler art song "Liebst du Um Schönheit" is a perfect and refreshing changeup in the program. Only once or twice does Fleming threaten to overmanipulate and overpower her material: on a slightly overripe performance of "You've Changed," and on the album's final selection, a sweet and wonderful arrangement of the Stephen Foster song "Hard Times Come Again No More." Here Frisell is at his best, spinning ridiculously lovely variations out of thin air, and Fleming is just the slightest bit heavy-handed, emphatic where a lighter touch might have worked just as well or better. But neither of these songs is anything like a failure, and everything else on Haunted Heart is a delight. Very highly recommended.