It's difficult to tell who has the stronger voice these days, Renee Fleming singing "La Traviata" or Susan Macfarlane singing the praises of Renee Fleming.

"She's so beautiful, not just her looks," said Macfarlane, a Roland Park grandmother and a huge fan of Fleming, the soprano known as one of opera's biggest divas.

"There's something about her voice," Macfarlane said. "It's so poignant, you want to protect it."

Macfarlane has been instrumental in bringing the world-famous singer to Baltimore for a scheduled concert Dec. 17 at the Lyric Opera House. It's the second time in as many years that Macfarlane has helped bring Fleming here.

Macfarlane and her husband, Sam, were well-known locally as major supporters of the now-defunct Baltimore Opera Company, and as underwriters of its operas. Macfarlane has also garnered attention in recent years as an opponent of the war in Iraq who started a movement called Women Opposing War (WOW) and as a supporter of Thanksgiving Place, a meditative labyrinth at Stadium Place. She was also a donor to the expansion of Baltimore Station, a facility for homeless veterans.

But when it comes to Fleming, Macfarlane is positively obsessed, a word she doesn't disavow as she promotes the upcoming concert with a series of local talks about the singer's life and accomplishments.

The Macfarlanes underwrote Fleming's December 2007 concert in Baltimore.

This time the Macfarlanes are making a financial contribution to the Lyric Foundation, which is sponsoring the upcoming concert. The main underwriters are Merrill Lynch and the Georgia and Peter Angelos Foundation.

But Susan Macfarlane is also co-chairing a 30-member committee that is organizing a dinner, a reception and a silent auction of a donated diamond necklace, which Fleming will wear on-stage to help pay for the concert.

'Forbidden' love

Macfarlane is so enamored of Fleming that she flew to China's Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing last year for a concert.

"You're not coming to see me," said her daughter, Margie, who lives there. "You're coming to see Renee."

"I said, 'Margie, that's not true.' But it almost was."

Now, like Fleming on tour, Macfarlane is in the midst of her own tour of churches and retirement communities -- most recently at Second Presbyterian Church, in Guilford, as part of its Senior Fellowship series of talks and concerts.

Armed with a slide projector Nov. 11, Macfarlane gave her audience of 15 seniors a detailed look at the 50-year-old Fleming's life and even showed home footage of the Indiana, Pa.-born Fleming as a child, playing near a Christmas tree and holding a pet bunny at Easter.

Macfarlane touched on all the basics, including Fleming's musical training at The Juilliard School in New York. But she also gave insight into sidelights like Fleming's early career as a jazz singer.

In an interview before her presentation, Macfarlane said she'd always liked opera, but was prone to falling asleep in the second act until early 2005, when Fleming sang with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at The Meyerhoff.

"I had heard of her but didn't really know about her. I was blown away."

Macfarlane was impressed not only by Fleming's voice, but also by her acting and "down to earth" interaction with the audience.

And she was even more impressed when she was invited to meet the star afterward.

"I said, 'Sam, we gotta hear her some more.' "

Flowers for Fleming

That spring, they saw her again at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, and a year later, she and Michael Harrison, then general director of the Baltimore Opera Company, organized a trip to Los Angeles to see "La Traviata."

"I couldn't get enough of her," Macfarlane said.

They sent flowers to Fleming's dressing room before the concert and got to meet her afterward.

"I said, 'It's never going to be this good again.' "

But it got better. In the next couple of years she followed Fleming to European cities, including Paris and Zurich, and to the Forbidden City Concert Hall, where there were a handful of Westerners in the audience of 1,500.

At almost every stop, Macfarlane stopped backstage to see Fleming -- and Fleming was becoming a little enamored of Macfarlane as well.

"I told my agent, 'We've got to do something in Baltimore,' " Fleming told Macfarlane after the Paris show, according to Kathy Grayson, director of external relations for the Lyric and former assistant to the general director at the Baltimore Opera. Grayson was at the concert with Macfarlane and helped her boss, Harrison, plan the trip.

By the end of 2007, the Macfarlanes were underwriting the first concert in Baltimore. A friendship developed between Fleming and Macfarlane.

"She said, 'If you ever need tickets, call my office,' " Macfarlane said.

Courtesy of Fleming, Macfarlane had front row center seats for a concert in Chicago in 2008.

"I paid for the tickets," Macfarlane said.

Their relationship "has gone from there," she said. Now, when they greet each other, "I get a hug."

Grand plans

More than just another chance to see Fleming in Baltimore, the upcoming concert is seen by opera lovers as a stepping-stone to bringing grand opera back to the Lyric, in the wake of the demise in March of the Baltimore Opera Company, based at the Lyric.

A new nonprofit, the Lyric Opera Foundation, has been created under the umbrella of the Lyric Foundation, "to support the operatic activities of the Lyric," Grayson said.

As the committee plans next month's reception, dinner and auction, Nelson Coleman Jewelers and Hearts on Fire Diamonds are donating an 18-carat white gold and diamond, pendant-style necklace, which Fleming will wear on-stage. The necklace is also being auctioned off to help pay for the concert.

The necklace won't come cheap; it's valued at $5,500, Macfarlane said.

"But as Sam says, 'It'll have her DNA on it.' "

For more information about the auction and the concert, call 410-685-5086, extension 322, or go to www.lyricoperahouse.com/NecklaceAuction.html.

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