Renée Fleming Celebrates 20 Years at the Metropolitan Opera

Click on the above image to launch the video interview with Renée Fleming

On March 16, 1991, a young soprano by the name of Renée Fleming was covering the role of Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, when she got the

The soprano in her early
days of New York City

telephone call at her apartment in Queens, NY, that Felicity Lott had the flu and was unable to sing the performance. That began what is now 20 years and over 200 performances at the opera house. Local news channel NY1 has an interview with the soprano talking about growing up singing, her early days in New York at Juilliard, dealing with various crisis (both mental and vocal) throughout her career, being a mother and risking it all to put out an indie-rock crossover album. The interview has lots of early photos of the singer, check out some of them after the jump. [Source]

As a toddler with her father conducting

Renée's mother and father

Riding horse as a teenager

A high school yearbook photo

In an Eastman School of Music production