Renée Fleming "Crudele...Non mi dir" LIVE (1996) Don Giovanni

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March 4th 1996, Palais Garnier
Renée Fleming: Donna Anna
Don Ottavio: Herbert Lippert
Conductor: Georg Solti

This recording derives from a performance with Solti that opened the newly refurbished Palais Garnier in 1996. In this concert performance of what was her last Mozart role debut, Fleming already shows a great musical and dramatic affinity for the Mozart role that (along with the Countess) perhaps suited her best not just vocally, but temperamentally too. There are several moments of pure magic here (listen for instance at 1:13). She sang 10 full Mozart roles in her career, including all three Don Giovanni women - her Don Elvira can be heard to great effect on her Mozart arias album, and in very fast live versions early in her career in a troubled production at La Scala with Muti).

Later in 1996 she did some further live performances of Don Giovanni in London, also with Solti (and Bryn Terfel as Don Giovanni) which were later released on CD. I love Solti's Mozart conducting here and elsewhere: he has a superb sense of Mozart's vitality, sensuous orchestral sonorities, rhythmic verve, and the composer's peerless sense of operatic atmosphere. Her Met performances from the year 2000 mark one of the high points of her career - the DVD is available there too, and many wonderful clips of that production are easily available on youtube.

This aria has been excerpted and uploaded before but never in such good sound as far as I know. I will post other clips too in due course.