CD reviews: Renee Fleming; Karen Elson

Renee Fleming, "Dark Hope" (Decca)

"There's a part of me you'll never know," Fleming sings as she begins her pop album "Dark Hope," in a voice her opera and lieder fans might not recognize. It's two octaves below her renowned lyric soprano, with a lushly melancholy tone reminiscent of Tori Amos or Sarah McLachlan.

Fleming revealed that voice in 2005 on "Haunted Heart," her jazz album. With that plunge into her lower register, she began to solve the longtime problems of opera singers' pop crossovers -- overwrought recordings with stilted enunciation.

Fleming let rock professionals -- Metallica managers Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch -- suggest a selection of songs spanning recent college-radio rock (Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie) and baby-boomer memories (Jefferson Airplane, Peter Gabriel). The arrangements came from producer David Kahne, who has worked with Kelly Clarkson. It adds up to an album about obsessive love rendered meticulously. The songs are generally brooding. They often have lyrics that are fraught yet downright enigmatic. Wisely, the tunes don't call for Fleming to swing or shout. They're on the hymnlike side, with rhythms and melodies she can linger over.

The arrangements recall the originals without copying them. Some, like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," end up too plush and fussy, while Muse's "Endlessly" teeters toward cheesy Euro disco. But Kahne came up with a few inventive variations such as "Mad World," trading the brittle electro-pop of Tears for Fears' version for something more organic, with synthetic jolts.

"Dark Hope" is a good start for an opera-free side career. Fleming's next step is figuring out how to sound, now and then, just a little less serious about it all.

JON PARELES, NEW YORK TIMES

Elson is an English supermodel who's married to Jack White of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. He produced this debut and played drums. And it's easy to hear Elson's songs -- tales of mortality and faithless love, set to waltzes and countryish rock -- in the shadow of her husband's analog-loving Americana.

White's production provides old-fashioned atmosphere, heading toward Celtic-Appalachian roots by way of reverb-loving 1960s rock. The arrangements aren't fancy, but they are attentive to the implied drama of the songs. There's no overt autobiography in the songs. Perhaps subliminally, many of the songs worry over the passage of time -- particularly the change of seasons -- and fickle male attention. The backup flatters Elson's voice, which shows the wavering concentration of a promising amateur. Some phrases are focused and persuasive, with a girlish feistiness; others are shaky. The lyrics, too, have graceful moments alongside awkward ones. But the music carries her through. A savvy stylist, White conceals the blemishes.