Atlanta Symphony Orchestra overpowers Fleming’s Strauss songs

In “Morgen!,” written by Richard Strauss in 1894, solo violin rises from a bed of strings in a tender duet with harp. When the vocalist opens with the optimistic line “And tomorrow, the sun will shine again,” the words betray the singer, accompanied by a violin and harp. It’s a chamber opening to a song that gently progresses to the entire orchestra while the music and lyrics take on a somber cast.

Thursday, Renee Fleming and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, led by music director Nathalie Stutzmann, chose “Morgen!” as the encore to an uneven night of Strauss songs. The unannounced close to the vocal set turned out to be the most thrilling song of the evening on a night when beautifully sung lieder, originally written for voice and piano and later with smaller-scale accompaniment contrasted with the richly orchestrated “Four Last Songs.” On these pieces, which Strauss wrote toward the end of his life, the Atlanta Symphony’s enthusiastic playing overwhelmed Fleming’s performance of nearly every song.

The concert opened in a chamber setting, of sorts, with a spotlight on six strings arrayed in a semicircle around Stutzmann’s podium. Fanned out behind them, the rest of the orchestra sat in darkened silence, an on-stage audience for a theater-in-the-round performance of Strauss’ “Capriccio” sextet. The musicians created an intimate, delicate musical world, full of warmth and wonder, inside Symphony Hall. Stutzmann, sitting on her podium, and Fleming, watching from a chair at the front of the stage, had the best seats in the house.

Credit: Rand Lines

Credit: Rand Lines

During the final bars of the sextet, the stage lights rose, along with Stutzmann and Fleming, poised to launch into the composer’s teeming “Four Last Songs.” Fleming has performed these songs for decades — she sounds vibrant and thrilling on record in 1996 with the Houston Symphony. A Strauss expert, Fleming’s most recent appearance in Georgia, at the Savannah Music Festival, came in service of her 2021 album “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene.” This was a very different concert.

At Symphony Hall, the full orchestra, seemingly equating emotional intensity with volume, completely masked much of Fleming’s lower range from the start. She sang with sensitivity and determination, but it was often difficult to hear complete phrases due to a marked imbalance between ensemble and soloist. Perhaps listeners sitting in different sections were able to hear Fleming more clearly. That said, the orchestra itself sounded as good as it’s been under Stutzmann’s baton, and Fleming offered the audience delicious high notes and a luxuriously resonant lower range.

Strauss’s “Orchestral Songs,” presented after intermission, are arrangements of lieder originally written with piano accompaniment. The recasting of a piano song into an orchestral score gave Fleming room to easily rise above the orchestra. The improvement was clear from the opening notes of “Waldseligkeit,” which showcased more of Fleming’s lower register, to “Muttertändelei,” a whimsical and cheeky song full of staccato accents.

After Fleming left the stage following several ovations, the orchestra closed the evening with “Der Rosenkavalier Suite,” marking the return of the florid orchestral sound. The ASO musicians are playing at a high level and seem to have fully embraced what ASO Executive Director Jennifer Barlament referred to as “the new Atlanta sound” under Stutzmann. This direction prizes emotional performances that emphasize the drama in each composition. There are countless merits to this approach, and a focus next year on bringing the new approach to cherished Classical-era works will no doubt lead to some amazing concerts, but Thursday evening also showed that emotional orchestral playing can overpower even the most celebrated guest artist.