Renée Fleming | A voice of infinite beauty and an evening to match

"I'll be back next week!" joked a radiant Renée Fleming from the Benaroya Hall stage, as a capacity audience cheered and shouted for more encores.

Most of the listeners would love to hold her to that promise. Fleming's concert with the Seattle Symphony and Gerard Schwarz was one of the high points of the season, an evening that reminded music lovers why the voice is the most infinitely subtle instrument of all.

Fleming is famous for the sheer beauty of her voice, and if her focus on gorgeous, expressive sound sometimes means that the diction is less than crystalline, it's a small price to pay. She "plays" that voice the way a great violinist plays a Stradivarius, with more expressive inflections per bar than you're likely to hear from any other singer. The results are a performance that genuinely gets inside the song and communicates its meaning to the audience.

Fleming poured out a steady stream of elegant sound, great breath control and stunning high notes, in a program that included Rossini ("Bel raggio lusinghier," from "Semiramide"), Strauss (the final scene from "Arabella" and two songs, including the exquisite "Morgen"), Massenet (two arias from "Thais") and Puccini ("O mio babbino caro" and "Vissi d'arte," among the most famous of all soprano arias).

Of course, it doesn't hurt that she is gorgeous. Attired in a sea-green spangled gown with a flowing satin wrap (by John Galliano for Dior, according to the program credit), Fleming looked like a designer mermaid (perhaps a reminder of her Seattle Opera debut as the title mermaid in Dvorak's opera "Rusalka"?).

Schwarz and the orchestra did a fine job of accompanying the soloist, and in the evening's orchestral excerpts, principal horn John Cerminaro was a standout in Chabrier's "Larghetto for Horn." John Weller and Roberta Downey did a great job as acting concertmaster and principal cello, respectively.

The encores brought Fleming back for a Strauss song ("Caecilie"), Gershwin's "Summertime" and "Over the Rainbow." The ovations made it clear that this is a diva who is well and truly adored.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com