Around the World with Renée

Singer Renée Fleming, who has performed at the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls, was at the top of her game when she made her second appearance as part of UCSB’s Arts & Lectures series at the Arlington, after the performance was switched from the Granada following the sprinkler disaster.

Fleming, who became the first classical artist to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in 2014, devoted the first half of the 90-minute program to a focus on the environment with wonderful National Geographic film footage, accompanied by pianist Howard Watkins, also an assistant conductor at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

The repertoire included Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now,” and works from Fauré, Grieg, and Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi, familiar to many from the 1985 Merchant Ivory film Room with a View with Maggie Smith and Helena Bonham Carter.

Fleming wrapped the show with Leonard Cohen’s rousing 1984 anthem “Hallelujah.’

The following day I was at the magnificent Montecito aerie of Tim and Audrey Fisher – who were major concert sponsors with Sara Miller McCune – for a lunch for Fleming with guests including Nancybell Coe, Roger and Robin Himovitz, Dorothy Largay, and Bruce and Susan Worster.