Norman, Jessye 1945–

Jessye Norman 1945–

Opera and concert singer

At a Glance…

Gained International Acclaim Early in Career

Took Temporary Leave of Opera

Inspired Lavish Ovations

Selected discography

Sources

American soprano Jessye Norman is hailed as one of the world’s greatest opera and concert singers and performers. Since the early 1970s she has starred at leading opera houses, concert halls, and music festivals throughout Europe, North America, and three other continents. She has also enjoyed a prolific recording career with over 40 albums and several Grammy Awards to her credit and is even recognized as the inspiration for the title character in the 1982 French film Diva, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix.

Norman’s voice has been resoundingly praised for its mastery of expression, technical control, and sheer power, while her diverse song repertoire spans standard and obscure operas to German lieder (classical songs), avant-garde works, and even popular ballads. As a performer, she is known for her magnetic and dramatic personality, and, with her imposing physical presence, cuts an impressive figure before audiences. According. to Curt Sanburn in Life, Norman on stage creates the perception of one who “veritably looms behind her lyrics.”

Born into a musical family in Augusta, Georgia, at the close of World War II, she was encouraged in her youth to be a singer. Norman’s mother, an amateur pianist, saw that all the children in the family took piano lessons, while her father, a successful insurance broker, sang frequently in the family’s Baptist church. As a young girl Norman loved singing and performed wherever she had the opportunity—at church, school, Girl Scout meetings, even a supermarket opening; yet she never formally studied voice until college. “I was completely sure I would be a psychiatrist,” she recalled in an interview with Charles Michener for Vanity Fair.

Norman fell in love with opera the first time she heard a Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast. “I was nine and I didn’t know what was going on, but I just loved it,” she told Michener. “After that I listened religiously.” Soon after, Norman mastered her first aria, “My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice,” from French composer Camille Saint-Saens’s Samson and Delilah. At 16 she traveled to Philadelphia with her school choral director for the Marian Anderson Scholarship competition and, while most of the participants were much older and she failed to win, received positive comments from the judges. On her return trip to Georgia she visited the music department at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and sang for Carolyn Grant, who would later become her vocal

At a Glance…

Born September 15, 1945, in Augusta, GA; daughter of Silas (an insurance broker) and Janie (a schoolteacher; maiden name, King) Norman. Education: Howard University, B.M. (cum laude), 1967; postgraduate study at Peabody Conservatory, 1967; University of Michigan, M.Mus., 1968. Politics: Democrat.

Opera and concert singer, 1969—; recording artist, 1971—. Opera credits include roles in Tannhäuser; The Marriage of Figaro; Deborah; Idomeneo; L’Africaine; Aïda; Les Troyens; The Damnation of Faust; Ariadne auf Naxos; Bluebeard’s Castle; Erwartung; Die Walküre; Don Giovanni; Hippolyte et Aricie; Gotterdämmerung; Dido and Aeneas; Oedipus Rex; Herodiade; and Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

Numerous concert performances with orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and Berlin Philharmonic; and numerous music festival performances, including Tanglewood, Aix-en-Provence, and Salzburg.

Selected awards: First prize in vocal competition from the National Society of Arts and Letters, 1965; Grammy Awards, 1980, 1982, and 1985; Musical America’s Outstanding Musician of the Year Award, 1982; Commandeur de I’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), 1984; member, Royal Academy of Music. Honorary degrees from Howard, Yale, Harvard, and Brandeis universities, the University of Michigan, and the Juilliard School of Music.

Addresses: Office —c/o Shaw Concerts Inc., 1995 Broadway, New York, NY 10023.

coach. After hearing Norman’s voice, Grant recommended the budding soprano for a full-tuition four-year scholarship to the university when she came of college age.

Norman graduated from Howard with honors in 1967 and during her university career won many fans who heard her sing in the university choral group and local church choirs. She went on to complete a summer of postgraduate study at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, followed by her master’s degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While at Michigan, Norman worked with two renowned teachers of voice, French baritone Pierre Bernac—a famous teacher of the art song—and Elizabeth Mannion. To finance her graduate school studies Norman auditioned for and received grants from various musical foundations and in 1968 received a scholarship from the Institute of International Education that allowed her to enter Bavarian Radio’s International Music Competition in Munich, Germany. When Norman was on a U.S. State Department musical tour of the Caribbean and Latin America that year she received word that she had won the prestigious European contest. Subsequently, she received offers to perform and work in Europe and moved overseas in 1969, following the path of many American singers who began their careers in the celebrated concert and opera halls of Europe.

Gained International Acclaim Early in Career

Norman enjoyed rapid success in Europe. In December of 1969 she signed a three-year contract with the venerable Deutsche Oper in West Berlin and was a sensation in her debut—at the age of 23—as Elisabeth in German composer Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Norman thereafter received other primary roles with the opera company, in addition to numerous offers to sing concerts and operas throughout Europe. In 1970 she made her Italian debut in Florence in George Frideric Handel’s Deborah and the following year her busy opera schedule included performances in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Idomeneo in Rome, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine in Florence, and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the Berlin Festival. Later in 1971 Norman auditioned for and won the opportunity to sing the role of the Countess in a Philips recording of Figaro with the BBC Orchestra under the direction of Colin Davis. The recording was a finalist for the prestigious Montreux International Record Award competition and brought Norman much exposure to music listeners in Europe and the United States.

In 1972 Norman performed in a Berlin production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aïda, a role in which she debuted later that year at the famed Italian opera stage, La Scala, in Milan. Also in 1972 she sang in a concert version of Aïda at the Hollywood Bowl in California, followed by a performance at Wolf Trap in Washington, D.C., with the National Symphony Orchestra, and an acclaimed Wagner recital at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts.

Norman’s triumphs of 1972 continued when she returned to Europe in the fall and debuted at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, England, as Cassandra in Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens. She also made her debut at the prestigious Edinburgh Music Festival that year. As a result of these victories, much acclaim and excitement awaited her first ever New York City recital the following year when she appeared as part of the “Great Performers” series at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. Norman’s performance, which included songs by European masters Wagner, Strauss, Brahms, and Satie, was hailed by Donald Henahan in the New York Times as one of “extraordinary intelligence, taste and emotional depth.”

Took Temporary Leave of Opera

In the mid-1970s, wanting to more fully develop her vocal range, Norman made the decision to stop performing operas temporarily to concentrate on concert performances. She told John Gruen in the New York Times of her desire to master a broad repertoire. “As for my voice, it cannot be categorized—and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range. I like so many different kinds of music that I’ve never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.”

The decision to take a half-decade leave from opera prompted criticism in concert circles. “I was considered difficult to deal with because I said ‘No’ so much,” she noted in Vanity Fair. “But my voice was changing and it needed time to develop. It takes years to get that understanding of how your voice works, years before you’re able to divorce yourself from that horrible word we call ‘technique’ and are able to release your soul.”

Over the years Norman’s technical expertise has been among her most critically praised attributes. In a review of one of her recitals at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, New York Times contributor Allen Hughes wrote that Norman “has one of the most opulent voices before the public today, and, as discriminating listeners are aware, her performances are backed by extraordinary preparation, both musical and otherwise.” Another Carnegie Hall appearance prompted these words from Bernard Holland in the New York Times: “If one added up all the things that Jessye Norman does well as a singer, the total would assuredly exceed that of any other soprano before the public. At Miss Norman’s recital... tones were produced, colors manipulated, words projected and interpretive points made—all with fanatic finesse.”

Norman returned to the operatic stage in 1980 in a performance of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in Hamburg, Germany, and in 1983 made her debut with New York City’s Metropolitan Opera Company in its gala centennial season opener of Les Troyens. Norman shone among the star-studded cast, as Henahan wrote in his review. “Miss Norman ... is a soprano of magnificent presence who commanded the stage at every moment,” he declared. “As the distraught Cassandra she sang grippingly and projects well, even when placed well back in the cavernous sets.”

Although Norman has had great success performing in full-scale opera productions, her formidable physical stature has somewhat limited the availability of stage roles to her and she has increasingly directed her opera singing to condensed concert versions. One of the standards in her repertoire is “Liebestod” (“Love of Death”), the finale from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, in which a despondent and soon-to-expire Isolde sings to her dead beloved, Tristan. Henahan reviewed Norman’s performance of “Liebestod” at the 1989 New York Philharmonic season opener: “Although she has never sung the complete role on any stage, she has handled this fearsome 10-minute challenge with increasing vocal authority and dramatic insight.... Hers is a grandly robust voice, used with great intelligence and expression.”

Inspired Lavish Ovations

Norman’s performances have sparked seemingly endless ovations from audiences throughout the world—a reported 47 minutes in Tokyo in 1985 and 55 minutes in Salzburg the next year. Another pinnacle of her career came in 1987 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood; her program of Strauss songs, which featured the final scene from Strauss’s opera Salome, prompted both critical acclaim and more than ten minutes of applause from the audience. Michael Kimmelman wrote in the New York Times on the power of that particular performance: “Ms. Norman’s voice seems to draw from a vast ocean of sound.... No matter how much volume Sieji Ozawa requested from his orchestra during the fiery scene from ‘Salome,’ it seemed little match for her voice. Yet, as always, what made the soprano’s performance particularly remarkable was the effortlessness with which she could hover over long, soft notes.... And there is also the quality of sound she produces: even the loudest passages are cushioned by a velvety, seductive timbre.”

Over the years Norman has not been afraid to expand her talent into less familiar areas. In 1988 she sang a concert performance of Francis-Jean-Marcel Poulenc’s one-act opera La Voix humaine (“The Human Voice”), based on Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play of the same name, in which a spurned actress feverishly pleads to keep her lover on the other end of a phone conversation. Although Henahan noted in the New York Times that Norman’s “characteristic...style puts great emphasis on tragic dignity,” and that the role perhaps called for less restraint, he nonetheless admired her as among those artists “driven to branch out into unlikely roles and whole idioms that stretch their talents interestingly, if sometimes to the breaking point.”

Other of Norman’s diverse projects have included her 1984 album With a Song in My Heart, which contains numbers from films and musical comedies, and a 1990 performance of American spirituals with soprano Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall. Norman told William Livingstone in Stereo Review that one of her objectives as a performer is “to communicate, to be understood in many ways and on many levels.” In 1989 she was invited to sing the French national anthem— “La Marseillaise”—in Paris during the celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Norman, who sings nearly flawless French (in addition to German and Italian), was particularly honored by the opportunity. “It makes you feel really good that people at home think you are worth their interest, but it’s incredible to be so warmly received in a foreign country,” she told Livingstone. “I love watching the faces of the people who are listening as I sing these songs and know that they understand.”

In the New York Times interview with Gruen, Norman described the reverence with which she approaches her work. “To galvanize myself into a performance, I must be left totally alone. I must have solitude in order to concentrate—which I consider a form of prayer. I work very much from the text. The words must be understood, felt and communicated.... If you look carefully at the words and absorb them, you’re half-way home already. The rest is honesty—honesty of feeling, honesty of involvement. If a performer is truly committed, then the audience will be the first to know and will respond accordingly. Of course, love is the thing that propels us all. It’s what carries us along— that’s the fuel!”

Selected discography

Beethoven, Ludwig van, Symphonie No. 6, op. 68: “Pastoral,” Deutsche Grammophon, 1981.

Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, London, 1987.

Berg, Alban, Lulu Suite [and] Der Wein, CBS Masterworks, 1979.

Berlioz, Hector, Les Nuits d’été, Philips, 1980.

Berlioz, Les Nuits d’été [and] La Mort de Cléopâtre, Deutsche Grammophon, 1982.

Berlioz, Roméo et Juliette, Angel, 1986.

Bizet, Georges, Carmen, Philips, 1989.

Brahms, Johannes, Lieder, Deutsche Grammophon, 1983.

Brahms, A German Requiem, Angel, 1985.

Bruckner, Anton, Symphonie nr. 8 c-moll [and] Te Deum, Deutsche Grammophon, 1981.

Bruckner, Te Deum [and] Helgoland [and] Psalm Deutsche Grammophon, 1983.

Debussy, Claude, L’Enfant prodigue [and] La Demoiselle é, Pro-Arte, 1982.

Faure, Gabriel Urbain. Penelope, Erato, 1982.

Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Alceste, 1982.

Haydn, Joseph, La vera constanza, Philips, 1977.

Hadyn, Armida, Philips, 1979.

Mahler, Gustav, Das Lied von der Erde, Philips, 1982.

Mahler, Symphony 2: “Resurrection,” CBS, 1984.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, The Marriage of Figaro, Philips, 1971.

Offenbach, Jacques, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Angel, 1988.

Purcell, Henry, Dido and Aeneas, Philips, 1986.

Ravel, Maurice, Songs of Maurice Ravel, CBS Masterworks, 1984.

Schubert, Franz, Lieder, Philips, 1973.

Schubert, Lieder, Philips, 1985.

Schumann, Robert, Frauenliebe und Leben, op. 42 [and] Liederkreis, op. 39, Philips, 1976.

Strauss, Richard, Four Last Songs, Philips, 1983.

Strauss, Lieder, Philips, 1986.

Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos, Philips, 1988.

Stravinsky, Igor, Oedipus Rex, Orfeo, 1983.

Verdi, Giuseppe, Un giorno di regno, Philips, 1974.

Verdi, Il corsaro, Philips, 1976.

Wagner, Richard, Tristan und Isode [and] Five Poems by Mathilde Wesendonk, Philips, 1975.

Wagner, Wesendonk Songs, Angel, 1986.

Wagner, Lohengrin, London, 1987.

Wagner, Scenes from Tristan und Isolde, Tannhäuser, Der fliegende Holländer, Gotterdämmerung, EMI, 1988.

Wagner, Die Walküre, Deutsche Grammophon, 1988.

Weber, Carl Maria von, Euryanthe, Angel, 1975.

Other

Christmastide, Philips, 1987.

Jessye Norman Live, Philips, 1988.

Jessye Norman Sings Duparc, Ravel, Poulence, Satie, Philips, 1977.

Lieder (various composers), Philips, 1988.

Lucky to Be Me, Polygram, 1992.

Sacred Songs, Philips, 1981.

Spirituals, Philips, 1979.

(With Kathleen Battle) Spirituals in Concert, 1991.

With a Song in My Heart, Philips, 1984.

Sources

Books

Greenfield, Edward, Robert Layton, and Ivan March, The New Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and Cassettes, Penguin, 1988.

The International Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, 10th edition, edited by Oscar Thompson, Dodd, 1975.

Periodicals

Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1992.

Ebony, March 1988; July 1991.

Life, March 1985.

Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1986; April 27, 1992.

Musical America, January 1991; July 1991; September/ October 1991; November/December 1991.

Music and Musicians, August 1979.

Newsweek, December 6, 1982.

New York, April 1, 1991; April 29, 1991; May 20, 1991.

New Yorker, April 1, 1991; May 20, 1991.

New York Times, January 21, 1973; January 23, 1973; December 15, 1982; September 18, 1983; September 27, 1983; November 24, 1983; January 26, 1986; August 25, 1987; February 20, 1988; March 6, 1989; September 22, 1989; March 19, 1990; February 11, 1992.

Opera News, June 1973; February 18, 1984; February 16, 1991; July 1991.

Stereo Review, October 1989; February 1991; July 1991; August 1991; September 1991.

Vanity Fair, February 1989.

Washington Post, August 7, 1972.

Norman was profiled in the documentary film Jessye Norman, Singer: Portrait of an Extraordinary Career, Malachite Productions, 1991.

—Michael E. Mueller