This native of Indiana, Pa., needs little introduction. Fresh from another role at the Metropolitan Opera in The Hours by Kevin Puts and winning her fifth and latest Grammy Award for “Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene,” an album she recorded with conducting superstar Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Fleming described her earliest recollections of her interactions with opera, which feature her family in starring roles. As one of the world’s most decorated lyric sopranos, she’s still many a story to tell.

Opera has been a part of my life since childhood. My parents were active in our thriving local opera company, and my mother performing Suor Angelica is a moment that is indelibly imprinted on me — I remember sitting with my siblings in the front row, in tears, as she sang to us during the final scene. I recall being mesmerized by the chandelier, by her stage makeup, visible even from the last row, and by the nun’s habit. I remember surrendering to the pure emotional display. Of course, that’s one of the great glories of opera.

I spent my infancy in a playpen by the piano where my mother gave voice lessons. Music was like air in our house. Someone was always playing the piano, singing, or putting a needle down onto a record.

When I was 12, I learned “Un bel dì, vedremo” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, “The trees on the mountain” from Susannah by Carlisle Floyd — both bel canto arias — and Britten’s “Salley Gardens” by leafing through the many anthologies lying around our house. I don’t recall ever thinking about it as something that I wanted to do; it was simply the family business. In fact, I was always involved in something — reading books, reading through music, making crafts (a constant pastime for me), and caring for horses we raised in our local 4-H program. Our house was somewhat isolated, so I wasn’t very social outside of school, but I didn’t mind. And eventually, I did end up singing in Susannah, many bel canto roles, and at least Puccini arias, if not the roles. Actually, Decca and the Metropolitan Opera have just released a double-length album of live recordings of my Met performances, and it’s interesting to look over the track list and realize how much of the music I encountered in childhood.

My first opera role may technically have been the wife in Gustav Holst’s The Wandering Scholar, a one-act chamber opera. But let’s say the first full-length opera role I performed was Laurie in The Tender Land with music by Aaron Copland and a libretto by Horace Everett. Yes, I loved it. Performing forced me out of my shy, reserved exterior and into a more expressive existence; one I had longed for throughout my teens, when I composed my own songs. My own compositions were really the beginning of my love for new music, as I became fascinated and awestruck by the act of creation itself.