good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with four-time grammy winner renee fleming one. nation's most acclaimed artists although now know throughout the world as an unparalleled opera singer. put hers through jewel yauillia currently in los angeles, in "a streetcar named desire" based on the tennessee williams play a role written for her by andre previn. glad you've joined us. a conversation with renee fleming coming up right now. ♪

♪ and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ four-time grammy winner rehm renee fleming appeared in london, on "sesame street" one of the finest in the world and performing in the l.a. production of "a streetcar named desire" based on the tennessee williams play singing the role of blanch duvois written for her

by composes r andre previn. let's listen to her singing "i can smell the sea air." ♪ into my ocean of blue >> you have done everything with everybody at least twice, i think in the world, yet i can't imagine what it feels like to have a piece written for you by andre previn. this is specifically renee

fleming for you? >> you know, it's incredibly exciting, because typically we sing in classical music where presenting works by composesers no longer with us and trying to fit into a template created by someone else. so when it's for you and you're the template, this such freedom. i could say, andre a better fit if i had a high note there, if you let me do this glamorous thing and, ah what a joy. because you just walk onstage it's like stepping into a suit that fits you perfect linchts to your point, what is the joy of being able to work collaboratively like that because the piece is writing four? >> specifically, he'll come up with an idea. i've done it with a couple of composers. listen to my recordings, work with them, i like this part of your voice. let's focus on that. i was able to say to andre, for example, i tour a lot, can i have an arya to take it with me? so he gave me five. you know? i just talked to him yesterday

and he has a new piece in mind for me as well. this is -- it's creative. totally creative. >> yeah. have you already figured how you will fit this into the show? your show as you travel? >> oh, i actually do these arios all the time and have -- we premiered this a long time ago. i've been singing it ever since and now young singers are performing it. it's been a successful piece, about 24 different runs. and i've been in 5 of them. >> yeah. your voice works well in this play. why? >> you know, tennessee williams plays are all operas:y think. so dramatic and the drama is, the emotional content is so extreme, and in many of them and the stories are really rich. so it lends itself twowell to p opera. blanch is a exciting person and someone said last night we

wanted to rescue her from the story, from the place. on the other hand not completely sipthetic either. to singer in a way gives her more range. the music heightens the drama. i think the pieceworks extremely well with music. a lot of his plays could be set easily to music. >> i had never thought about that. i wanted to talk about tennessee williams. glad you took me in that direction, but i've never thought of his work as opper iraq. it makes sense as i think about t. all would be great operas. rose tattoo. night of iguana. all of these would be great operas. others one, summer and smoke, made into an opera, some others have been already. but this works so well. this production works well also. we have the great stanley shouting stella, and aun dra was smart not to try to have him sing that. >> tennessee williams, many believe he's absolutely the best. that it's hard to top his work?

>> i think the tragedy with him, so much success early and so young, and a fashion piece and struggled after that. it's a shame. he's one of our greatest playwrights, ever. >> yeah. the exact opposite of that is the fact that you have had this long and encuring career. you had a chance to do a variety of things. what is it about you that -- always finds you wanting to try and do something different? >> that's it. >> you're always pushing the boundaries. >> yeah. that's true. i'm very musically curious, and i love new experiences. i'm an adventurer. some want to stay in a safe zone and repeat the same things and give them more depth and i want to do new things all the time. i also think because i'm, grew up with eclectic interests and tastes in music, from pop to jazz, and wanting to explore that music theater, and that's

particularly an american thing as well, and at least in my generation, i didn't want to be pushed into a '50s italian template of what an opera singer is. it wasn't a good fit for me vocally. which is why blanch is my tuska or madam butterfly. i can't sing those roles. it's my chance to be dramatic. i love the voice. everything there is about the voice. i did a project at the kennedy center that will be on pbs this year called "american voices" that explore what's we have in common, we as opera singers, with all genres of singers and all came together to talk about it from medicine to the business to vocal technique to lifestyle issues, and what our challenges are. loved that. learned from it. learned a lot from it, and i'm doing a holiday disc right now i just recorded with wynton and some fabulous other performer, and -- of holiday tunes, but non-classic non-classical.

another style of sings. >> you mentioned wynton. we've had many, many all-night conversations about this very issue, which is this notion of particular genres wanting to box artists in. i suspect you and wynton have had this conversation, i'm sure, yours. . this notion of purist in a particular field. it could be jazz, opperist pure it, but they want to oftentimes box in certain artists. even critics will come after you for moving beyond the boundaries of what they deem appropriate choices musically. you don't seem to be one of those artists ache to navigate that mine field, you've been able to do this relatively well. what do you make how you've been able to do that and not have people just disdain you for -- trying so many different things? >> when i even, you know, a decade ago, you did it very carefully and there was tremendous risk. associated. you know, everything is generational.

we've seen changes happening so quickly in life. and with each ensuing generation something new is possible and i'm finding younger performers have thrown all of the rules away, and they're in a club with leather jackets on, performing penderretskiwi coldplay, and anything goes. whatever they want to explore artistically as long as it's quality and there's an audience for it, it's fine. i love that and found even with myself, it's much easier now, and i don't worry about it quite as much as i used to. >> what you basically said to me, ren ooeshgs it's renee, it's good for the artist. good for the artist to be allowed to x, y and z so long as they do it well? it's good for the music? >> it can be. a lot of it is paced. a lot of it is audience tastes moop is the audience?

finding the audience. sometimes it's quality. sometimes you think that's not really a fit. i've certainly tried things i've thought, well -- that didn't work so well, but the active exploration and the process of the adventure i think it grows. you grow in that and it's important. stylistically i started in jazz. >> uh-huh. >> and i didn't really learn how to sing until i was in a jazz club for 2.5 years every weekend, and i found my voice, and my freedom, my ability to communicate with an audience. all of that came through jazz, at the same time i was studying classical music and opera. so -- i applied that stylistically to how i sang. some people loved it, some didn't. but it was me. >> what's the greatest gift? you mentioned a couple now. i think. you may have urd answered this. make sure i god it right. what's the greatest gift you think jazz gave you singing all of those weekends? >> absolutely the improv, freedom. having to improvise. finding high notes through that. my voice teacher would say do

you have any idea what you just sang? i'd say, no. she said, good. better if you don't know. it was, high cue. >> you know, but the main thing was style. it was really -- and i've replied that to strauss and everything. how you bend a phrase, how you create tension in a line. that makes music sexy. it's tension. and i learned that, and you know -- by singing in the club. >> you intimated so much is about taste and it is, because i want to get inside your head and your heart for that matter. what do you hear when you hear something that you have tried, that you don't think works? because i mean if you're a renee fleming fan it's hard to decipher anything you've done we don't like. we love the fact you're so brilliant at what you do. when you hear something you've tried that you don't like what are you hearing? >> to be fair, i'm hypercritical of everything i do. we all are. we're perfectionists. right jt a lot of times there

are certain givens. pitch is one. i don't, on repeated hearing a recording is, i don't want people to be irritated by something i've done. so -- i don't want to be irritated by it. that's one thing. languages have to be perfect. you want to sound at awe tentic as possible and beyond that, how do you make an interpretation in something that sounds authentically, you know, sounds real? that sounds honest. honesty is very important to me. but in terms of style, sometimes i just think, gosh, my voice doesn't do that very well. you know? i shouldn't have tried that, or sometimes it's one track. or -- and -- for the most part i'm conservative about my choices. there haven't been many things i thought it was horrible. a lot of times i chalk it up to learning. i learned a lot from that project. maybe it wasn't the most successful thing but i grew in that. >> i think i take your point about honesty in music. i'm certainly turned on by the

phrase, let me just drill a little further if i can, what you mean by honesty in music. does that mean lyric, lived experience? stylistically? what do you mean by the music having to be honest for you? >> you have to, i think, find the emotional truth for yourself in what you're singing. that's very important that i feel something. because otherwise you're not going to communicate with the audience. you sgloe if itknow? just i'm doing everything right, that's not hitting home. there's an emptiness to that. that said, i'm not saying i'm always successful. i'm not. but that's what i've striving for and also always striving to find the most emotional moment in everything i do. you know? how to make that, find that line. because you start crying, then you can't sing very well anymore, but almost to that point, that's where you want to be. >> have you done performances where you almost tripped yourself up emotionally because of the power of the piece? >> oh, sure. yeah. sure, sure, sure.

and then, know, you have to rein it in enough to keep going, but that's a great fine line to be on. >> yeah. i don't want cover this question any more than deliberately, because you've performs for audiences all over the world, give me two, three lessons, takeaways, don't want to color it more than this, that you've learned from performing before a live audiences? and i think that the answer, we'll see in a second. i think the answer you'll give me applies to not just musical artists but to anyone who stands in front of a live audience and performs. what are some of the lessons you learned about how to do that successfully? >> we opened last night in the "streetscar" and have two more performances. i suffer a lot to perform. i'm one of these crazy people who has to suffer to perform -- comfortably. >> after all of these years? >> it's almost worse now. for me, i made up a whole new level of suffering. >> wow. >> so -- and i think, god, why am i still doing this? but there's something magical about that audience

relationship. and they're all different. you know, we stunned last night by how much people laughed. in "streetcar" and how funny they thought it was in the first half and second act and then, of course it wasn't funny anymore. i ought that's fascinating to me, and there's a high afterwards. i think you can get a little addicted to that. you know? to that -- that response, in a way, and it's not a life like this. it's a life of a lot of mountains and valleys. >> mountains and valleys. as you look back on the course of your career thus far what do you see as valleys? i see a lot of mountains. but what's the -- what are valleys? >> the valleys have a lot to do with the lifestyle. i'm on the road a lot. i have two children. beautiful, beautiful girls, who are, oh, they're fabulous. and to, and they made sacrifices for what i do as women and that's a lot to ask of your children. that's the biggest valley for 3450e. the debris to which you have to leave the people you love. and i also, to take care of this

instrument that's in the you that you can't put in a closet or in a case. it's a big responsibility. and a trial. when traveling all the time. >> how do you think -- never behind critics say, what r how do you think after all of this use your instrument is holding up? . >> i think it's holding up very well. all things considered:i can still technically do what i have always done, maybe not at consistently and i don't like that kind of risk. so i'm conservative in my choices now. but there's still a lot of music to sing. it's 400 years of music. i can keep going as long as i find things that are nice for the audience and that i enjoy doing. >> yeah. occurs to me, renee, i've mentioned and three or four occasions critics. what is your view after all of these years being criticized by so many, the good, the bad, the ugly, what it's your take on the

worth and the value of the critic in contemporary america? >> i -- well, two things to say about that. one i think critics can be incredibly useful in terms of helping the audience understand what they're hearing. they can educate to a great degree, in that we don't have time to research what we're seeing anymore. we have 1,000 pulls on our time now. so to be able to sort of read something that kind of sums it up and gives us history and some of the interesting history as well is good. that said, i think a great degree of negativity is not helpful to the classical arts, because we're struggling as it is to find and maintain our audiences with all the competition out there, and by and large, if you see reviews of mainstream arts, you see whole different point of view on it. a different take on it. classical arts over time have become the sort of, you know, in the navel kind of interior, and often not as constructive as i

would wish it could be. we want to get enthusiasm, we want people to do want to come to these things. i'm a consultant to a lyric author in chicago and not only performing there but trying to develop the audience and help the company sink much more broadly about what we present and how we present it, with a world premiere, with bringing second city's guide to the opera, and these kinds of fun projects, and it's really made a huge difference. created a lot of buzz, and i love that, and that's an important, i think, way in which we can try to get new audiences in. >> your comment now about the classical arts. these new audiences raise two questions for me. one, true to your take, i've asked others this question, but not an artist of your stature, i think, of what it's going to take for the classical arts in

the most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic america ever to survive? even if the critics start saying nothing but wonderful things about what they're seeing presented, if you don't connect to an audience that is multicultural, multiracial and multiethnic, at some point down the road in this america, the arts, those classical arts are going to suffer to an even greater extent. how do you, in place like chicago, or beyond, multicultural city, how do you address that? >> well, chicago, lyric opera just presented its second mariachi concerts and i heard literally a woman was climbing on the stage. so excited. the latino culture, they can sing. thinking ever think of all the great singers moat because of mariachi. tenors mostly. placido domingo, voila.

it's important to reach out and find communities. gone are the days when you simply built a spectacular hall and opens the doors and said you are so fortunate to come into this temple of art. right? i mean, people are saying, so? you know? or, gosh, we wouldn't know what to wear. or, you know, when do you clap? i mean, so the internet i think is helpful, having broad cascas cinemas is helpful. definitely going into the community and figuring out why and how do people sing? why do they care about music? what culturally do we want to say about our lives? arts, we're the muses of history. it's really a fascinating thing to know that. i mean, super bowl for me this year was a huge -- >> which i -- >> game-changer. >> can i jump in and say we were talking about in in advance of your arrival today. to a person, every one of us, i'm at the front of this group, every one of us still has chill bumps for the performance.

you killed that thing. >> oh, thank you. >> amazing at the super bowl. >> oh, god. i'll tell you, sleepless nights, in preparation for that, two minutes that have to be perfect. >> 2 was worth it. i'm glad you didn't get any sleep, but i'm glad you didn't sleep because you nailed that thing. >> i'm excited. the smithsonian just took vera wangle amazing dress she made for me. that's not so bad. you know? she could do that. hopefully that will make people think in a more broad way. t's what i love. i love singing, period. >> yeah. what kind of response did you raise? what kind of response did you get from everyday bhepeople whe they saw you walking down the sidewalk in new york, after the super bowl performance? >> a lot of people, they're so emotional about the national anthem. it means a lot to them. i can't believe the mail i got

from people saying, thank you, and we loved it, and we're so glad it was -- somehow a more formal version of it. you know? so just incredibly positive response. really positive. >> i've asked this question of others, not of renee fleming. so as keys and chords go, of all the stuff you've sung, how difficult is it to nail the national anthem? >> oh, it's hard. this is not for amateurs. i don't know how they thought every citizen could sing this in the same -- you could all sing this together. it's a octave and a half. add the interpolated note people expect, it's challenging for anybody. granted, classical singer is, that's very basic for us to have range but still, us not a no-brainer. "america the beautiful" is much nicer. >> why ray charles did that. ray kimmed that.

nobo killed that. nobody can do it like ray. i'm almost out of time. you're always in new york, never come to l.a. >> i have to change that. >> so great to have you on the set, first of all. has this career turned out to be -- not that it's coming to be over, are you where you hoped to be started in a whole different genre? >> well, first of all, when you're young you dream everything. people say, did you ever think you'd achieve -- when you're young, you are think you're going to beat the world. it's reality that really teaches you, and also, remember it wasn't that long ago that beverly sills hostsed johnny carson for a week. that people were on television all the time who sang like i do. so it's gotten much more challenging in a way. the three tenors certainly changed the playing field. but that said, i could not -- there's nothing i could wish for. i've sung all over the world.

my children have traveled with me all over the world. i'm going to japan in a few weeks. i love what i do. i think it's a privilege, and an honor, to do what i do. >> yeah. i wished for, what, 11 seasons we're on now? wished for 11 seasons for this moment to finally happen and it happened. renee fleming cake to laechlt and appeed on the program and i could not be more tickled to have you here and talk to you. "a streetcar named desire," tennessee williams what can you say, the last production starring renee fleming at blanch dubois, if you can get in. good luck with that. >> i feel a high note coming on. >> if you can, go see it. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. ♪ the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night ♪ that our flag was still there ♪

oh say doest that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ or the land of the free ♪ and the home of the brave ♪ for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with matthew weiner. "mad men"'s final season. that's next time. we'll see you then. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

and by kroshgss to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

like, let's do a live interview. and then we were like, "well, let's bring our online community and do it livestream. and bring in twitter and facebook and allow people to ask their own questions." i really like veronica belmont. i tweeted to her. she instantly responded. she said, "yes." and i was like, "what?" (veronica) if' you're really passionate about a topic and you wanna work in that field, you should already be doing it. (female announcer) roadtrip nation would like to thank the college board for supporting this series. the college board: connect to college success. (male announcer) this public television series is supported by the university of phoenix foundation. helping roadtrip nation build hope, discovery, and educational