Crossing over into a different music genre ? and being successful ? isn't easy. Even someone as talented as Lil Wayne failed horribly in his recent attempt to make a rock record.

Renee Fleming is part of the minority who easily manages to adjust her vocals and style, adapting to different sounds and tastes.

Fleming is of course the American soprano specialising in opera and lieder, and boasts a full lyric soprano voice. But on Dark Hope, she puts her own spin on some of the most popular rock and pop songs.

The results are beautiful and wholly unexpected. Not only does she adjust the songs according to her incredibly powerful voice, but the arrangements have also been tweaked. She doesn't simply sing over the original tune ? oh no, Fleming "remixes" the songs to suit her almost-gothic style.

This is done flawlessly, and it's most evident in songs like Tears For Fears' Mad World, Death Cab For Cutie's Soul Meets Body, and Muse's Endlessly.

Although the songs are familiar, her treatment brings them back to life, ushering them into a new realm of cool. And also, no doubt, forcing people to rethink their view of opera.

Fleming literally covers a whole spectrum of artists, and reinterprets songs like Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, Stepping Stone by Duffy, Arcade Fire's Intervention, and even the wholly unlikely The Mars Volta's With Twilight As My Guide.

But the definite highlight on the album, although there are many, has to be the last track, a perfect rendition of Leonard Cohen's classic Hallelujah. The song starts off very dark, creating an almost spooky atmosphere but, after a short interlude, she breaks into the first verse with much conviction. It's almost as if the song was written for Fleming, with her voice flowing from lyric to lyric with the greatest of ease.

Dark Hope is indeed that. The album, being operatic and somewhat gothic, is a bit of a turn to the dark side, but that is what makes it so beautiful. The chosen songs, in their original format, are also slightly harder to what Fleming is used to singing, so going 'dark' is appropriate.

A beautiful album, it also brings with it the hope that more people might even cross over into opera itself.

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