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( Norman offers a broad and global perspective on life, ...)
Norman offers a broad and global perspective on life, the arts, and spirituality . . . Inspiring. Booklist In Stand Up Straight and Sing!, Jessye Norman recalls in rich detail the strong women who were her role models, from her ancestors to family friends, relatives, and teachers. She hails the importance of her parents in her early learning and experiences in the arts. And she describes coming face-to-face with racism, not just as a child living in the segregated South but also as an adult out and about in the world. She speaks of the many who have inspired her and taught her essential life lessons. A special interlude on her key relationship with the pioneering African American singer Marian Anderson reveals the lifelong support that this great predecessor provided through her example of dignity and grace at all times.
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Jessye Norman was born on September 15, 1945, in Augusta, Georgia, United States. Her father, an insurance broker, and her mother, a schoolteacher, encouraged her musically, so she was singing in church choirs from the age of four. Apart from her great love of singing, her childhood was by all accounts typical.
Her first step toward a singing career, taken at the suggestion of her high school chorus teacher, was to enter the Marion Anderson vocal competition in Philadelphia at age 16. Though she did not win the competition, as a result of her singing she did gain a full scholarship to Howard University in Washington, D. C. There she studied voice with Carolyn Grant. After graduating from Howard she continued her singing studies with Alice Duschak at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and with Pierre Bernac and Elizabeth Mannion at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
To finance her graduate studies, Norman entered the 1968 International Music Competition of the German Broadcasting Corporation in Munich and took first prize. She learned of her honor while on a U. S. State Department musical tour of the Caribbean and Latin America.
First prize at International Music Competition accorded her immediate wide recognition and engagements throughout Germany leading to a December 1969 debut with the venerable and prestigious Deutsche Oper in Berlin as Elizabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser. She signed a three-year contract shortly thereafter, and enjoyed rapid success in Europe.
Her search took her to Italy where, in the spring of 1970, she sang in a lesser-known Handel oratorio, Deborah, at the Teatro Communale in Florence. In April of 1972 she made her debut at Milan's famous opera house, La Scala, in the title role of Verdi's Aida. Her first well-publicized American performance took place that summer in a concert performance of the same role at the Hollywood Bowl. Later in 1972 she further established herself in the United States with an all-Wagner concert at the Tanglewood Festival in Lennox, Massachusetts, and a recital tour of the country. That September she made her London debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Cassandra in Berlioz's Les Troyens.
During the years 1973-1975 she performed throughout the Western world-in Spain, Holland, Germany, Scotland, Italy, England, France, and Argentina, as well as the United States, often performing works outside the standard repertoire, including Franck's oratorio Les Béatitudes and Schoenberg's song cycle, Die Gurrelieder. In 1975 Norman moved to London and had no staged opera appearances for the next five years.
While she gave as the reason for her withdrawal the need to fully develop her voice, others felt that this was a period of concern for her weight and thus her stage image. She remained internationally active as a recitalist and soloist in works such as Mendelssohn's Elijah.
In October of 1980 Norman returned to the operatic stage in the title role of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Hamburger Staatsoper in Hamburg, Germany. In 1982 she appeared in her American stage debut with the Philadelphia Opera as Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aneas and as Jocasta in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. Her belated debut at the Metropolitan Opera took place in September of 1983, the opening night of its 100th anniversary season, again as Cassandra. She was invited to sing at the January 21, 1985, inauguration of President Reagan, an invitation which she debated as an African American, as a Democrat, and as a nuclear disarmament activist. But she did accept and sang the folk song "Simple Gifts. "
She also received awards for her recordings of R. Strauss, Four Last Songs; R. Schumann, Frauenlieben und Leben; Schoenberg, Die Gurrelieder; and Negro spirituals. In 1985 it was reported that a Tokyo audience applauded for 47 minutes, and the next year an audience in Salzburg Austria applauded for 55 minutes.
Norman's work in the 1990 included singing at the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's production of Ariadne auf Naxosin 1993, taking part at a gala for the New York Philharmonic in 1995, and appearing at concerts throughout the world.
In 1999 Norman collaborated with choreographer-dancer Bill T. Jones in a project for New York City's Lincoln Center, called "How! Do! We! Do!" In 2002, Norman performed at the opening of Singapore's Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. On March 11, 2002, Norman performed "America the Beautiful" at a service unveiling two monumental columns of light at the site of the former World Trade Center, as a memorial for the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City.
Norman no longer performs ensemble opera, concentrating instead on recitals and concerts. She serves on the Boards of Directors for Carnegie Hall, the New York Public Library, the New York Botanical Garden, City-Meals-on-Wheels in New York City, Dance Theatre of Harlem, National Music Foundation, and Elton John AIDS Foundation.
She encompassed an uncommonly wide range, from Monteverdi to Boulez. Her rich soprano voice, however, was sometimes plagued by problems of voice production. Her performances sparked endless ovations from audiences all over the world.
Among the numerous honors bestowed upon Norman were the following: Musical America's musician of the year, 1982; and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, 1984. In March 1997, Jessye Norman was honored by New York's Associated Black Charities at the 11th Annual Black History Makers Awards Dinner for her contributions to the arts and to African American culture.
In 2003, the Rachel Longstreet Foundation and Norman partnered to open the Jessye Norman School of the Arts, a tuition-free performing arts after-school program for economically disadvantaged students in Augusta, Georgia.
( Norman offers a broad and global perspective on life, ...)
She was a nuclear disarmament activist.
Quotations: She told John Gruen of the New York Times, "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. "
She is a member of the British Royal Academy of Music.
From her student days Norman had been selective about her repertoire, heeding her own instincts and interests more than the advice of her teachers or requests of her management.
Quotes from others about the person
New York Times writer 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. "
"Ms Norman's voice seems to draw from a vast ocean of sound. .. .Yet . .. 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 that she produces: even the loudest passages are cushioned by a velvety seductive timbre, " wrote Michael Kimmelman.
