Happy haunting.

Haunted Heart * Renee Fleming with Fred Hersch and Bill Frisell * Decca

Metropolitan Opera star Renee Fleming sings her latest disc, Haunted Heart, in what she calls her "other voice." Using her chesty lower range, the soprano reveals a soulful new sound and infuses a staggeringly wide range of songs with a disarming emotional vulnerability.

This is not another one of those "opera singer does Broadway" collections--thank heavens. Instead, Fleming handpicks favorites from the worlds of pop, jazz, folk, and classical, giving each a loving and leisurely treatment.

There's Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour" alongside Lennon and McCartney's "In My Life," with Joni Mitchell and Stephen Foster compositions as well. One particularly surprising and gripping cut features an excerpt of Alban Bergs expressionistic opera Wozzeck as a prelude to the Lionel Hampton-Johnny Mercer standard "Midnight Sun."

Throughout it all, there's a nocturnal elegance. That feeling is due not just to Fleming's unstudied vocal freedom but also to the work of her well-chosen collaborators. Out jazz pianist Fred Hersch, who arranged most of the tracks, plays with a calming restraint. On other tracks the cutting-edge jazz artist Bill Frisell paints a deep-hued soundtrack with his quietly reverberant electric guitar.

Perhaps every opera singer has an "other voice," but few would have the guts to make a record like this.