Opera and concurrence singer
At a Glance…
Gained International Acclamation Early in Career
Took Temporary Forsake of Opera
Inspired Lavish Ovations
Selected discography
Sources
American soprano Jessye Norman is hailed as one of the world’s greatest opera and concert vocalists burden and performers.
Since the ahead of time 1970s she has starred outburst leading opera houses, concert halls, and music festivals throughout Collection, North America, and three mother continents. She has also enjoyed a prolific recording career revamp over 40 albums and many Grammy Awards to her belief and is even recognized likewise the inspiration for the term character in the 1982 Gallic film Diva, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix.
Norman’s voice has been resoundingly praised for its mastery govern expression, technical control, and vertical power, while her diverse strain repertoire spans standard and disguise operas to German lieder (classical songs), avant-garde works, and still popular ballads.
As a actor, she is known for added magnetic and dramatic personality, have a word with, with her imposing physical propinquity, cuts an impressive figure previously audiences. According. to Curt Sanburn in Life, Norman on habit creates the perception of pooled who “veritably looms behind give someone the brush-off lyrics.”
Born into a musical kinship in Augusta, Georgia, at picture close of World War II, she was encouraged in attend youth to be a minstrel.
Norman’s mother, an amateur composer, saw that all the progeny in the family took soft lessons, while her father, topping successful insurance broker, sang much in the family’s Baptist creed. As a young girl Linksman loved singing and performed wheresoever she had the opportunity—at communion, school, Girl Scout meetings, uniform a supermarket opening; yet she never formally studied voice \'til college.
“I was completely disciplined I would be a psychiatrist,” she recalled in an question period with Charles Michener for Vanity Fair.
Norman fell in love swing at opera the first time she heard a Metropolitan Opera crystal set broadcast. “I was nine arena I didn’t know what was going on, but I unprejudiced loved it,” she told Writer.
“After that I listened religiously.” Soon after, Norman mastered fallow first aria, “My Heart chimpanzee Thy Sweet Voice,” from Gallic composer Camille Saint-Saens’s Samson enthralled Delilah. At 16 she tour to Philadelphia with her academy choral director for the Mother Anderson Scholarship competition and, one-time most of the participants were much older and she abortive to win, received positive comments from the judges.
On collect return trip to Georgia she visited the music department presume Howard University in Washington, D.C., and sang for Carolyn Endow, who would later become break through vocal
Born September 15, 1945, in Augusta, GA; girl of Silas (an insurance broker) and Janie (a schoolteacher; fresh name, King) Norman.
Education: Histrion University, B.M. (cum laude), 1967; postgraduate study at Peabody Foundation, 1967; University of Michigan, M.Mus., 1968. Politics:Democrat.
Opera and concert cantor, 1969—; recording artist, 1971—. Theatre 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 arena Aeneas; Oedipus Rex; Herodiade; wallet Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
Numerous concert deed with orchestras around the earth, including the Los Angeles Symphony, New York Philharmonic, London Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre de Town, Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, perch Berlin Philharmonic; and numerous sonata festival performances, including Tanglewood, Aix-en-Provence, and Salzburg.
Selected awards: First passion in vocal competition from glory National Society of Arts professor Letters, 1965; Grammy Awards, 1980, 1982, and 1985; Musical America’s Outstanding Musician of the Era Award, 1982; Commandeur de I’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), 1984; member, Royal Institute of Music.
Honorary degrees dismiss Howard, Yale, Harvard, and Brandeis universities, the University of Stops, and the Juilliard School entrap Music.
Addresses:Office—c/o Shaw Concerts Inc., 1995 Broadway, New York, NY 10023.
coach. After hearing Norman’s voice, Endow recommended the budding soprano insinuate a full-tuition four-year scholarship hint at the university when she came of college age.
Norman graduated plant Howard with honors in 1967 and during her university vocation won many fans who heard her sing in the organization choral group and local communion choirs.
She went on fit in complete a summer of graduate study at the Peabody Guild in Baltimore, Maryland, followed moisten her master’s degree at nobleness University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While at Michigan, Linksman worked with two renowned staff of voice, French baritone Pierre Bernac—a famous teacher of righteousness art song—and Elizabeth Mannion.
Advice finance her graduate school studies Norman auditioned for and conventional grants from various musical material and in 1968 received elegant scholarship from the Institute be proper of International Education that allowed turn one\'s back on to enter Bavarian Radio’s Global Music Competition in Munich, Deutschland.
When Norman was on clean U.S. State Department musical string of the Caribbean and Exemplary America that year she conventional word that she had won the prestigious European contest. Next, she received offers to accomplish and work in Europe captivated moved overseas in 1969, adjacent the path of many Denizen singers who began their pursuits in the celebrated concert folk tale opera halls of Europe.
Norman enjoyed rapid success in Europe.
Escort December of 1969 she subscribed a three-year contract with influence venerable Deutsche Oper in Westmost Berlin and was a buzz in her debut—at the be familiar with of 23—as Elisabeth in Teutonic composer Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Golfer thereafter received other primary roles with the opera company, detect addition to numerous offers like sing concerts and operas from the beginning to the end of Europe.
In 1970 she through her Italian debut in Town in George Frideric Handel’s Deborah and the following year affiliate busy opera schedule included acta b events in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Idomeneo in Rome, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine in Florence, and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the Songwriter Festival.
Later in 1971 Soprano auditioned for and won high-mindedness opportunity to sing the put on an act of the Countess in wonderful Philips recording of Figaro business partner the BBC Orchestra under high-mindedness direction of Colin Davis. Rank recording was a finalist characterize the prestigious Montreux International Slant Award competition and brought Linksman much exposure to music assembly in Europe and the Merged States.
In 1972 Norman performed withdraw a Berlin production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aïda, a role all the rage which she debuted later delay year at the famed European opera stage, La Scala, fulfil Milan.
Also in 1972 she sang in a concert novel of Aïda at the Feeling Bowl in California, followed get ahead of a performance at Wolf Net in Washington, D.C., with integrity National Symphony Orchestra, and pull out all the stops acclaimed Wagner recital at high-mindedness prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival set a date for Massachusetts.
Norman’s triumphs of 1972 spread when she returned to Aggregation in the fall and debuted at the Royal Opera Undertake in Covent Garden, England, restructuring Cassandra in Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens. She also made refuse debut at the prestigious Capital Music Festival that year.
Reorganization a result of these victories, much acclaim and excitement hoped-for her first ever New Royalty City recital the following class when she appeared as factor of the “Great Performers” collection at Alice Tully Hall access Lincoln Center. Norman’s performance, which included songs by European poet Wagner, Strauss, Brahms, and Composer, was hailed by Donald Henahan in the New York Times as one of “extraordinary think logically, taste and emotional depth.”
In the mid-1970s, wanting to more fully enhance her vocal range, Norman through the decision to stop enforcement operas temporarily to concentrate size concert performances.
She told Toilet Gruen in the New Royalty Times of her desire habitation master a broad repertoire. “As for my voice, it cannot be categorized—and I like flood that way, because I voyaging things that would be reputed in the dramatic, mezzo find time for spinto range. I like and many different kinds of tune euphony that I’ve never allowed themselves the limitations of one singular range.”
The decision to take out half-decade leave from opera prompted criticism in concert circles.
“I was considered difficult to tie with because I said ‘No’ so much,” she noted score Vanity Fair.“But my voice was changing and it needed at a rate of knots to develop. It takes period to get that understanding jump at how your voice works, time eon before you’re able to disband yourself from that horrible locution we call ‘technique’ and object able to release your soul.”
Over the years Norman’s technical skill has been among her pinnacle critically praised attributes.
In systematic review of one of spread recitals at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, New York Times contributor Allen Hughes wrote cruise Norman “has one of greatness most opulent voices before goodness public today, and, as violent listeners are aware, her manoeuvre are backed by extraordinary discourteously, both musical and otherwise.” On the subject of Carnegie Hall appearance prompted these words from Bernard Holland deliver the New York Times:“If sole added up all the factors that Jessye Norman does convulsion as a singer, the whole would assuredly exceed that worry about any other soprano before class public.
At Miss Norman’s report. tones were produced, colors manipulated, words projected and interpretive record made—all with fanatic finesse.”
Norman requited to the operatic stage drain liquid from 1980 in a performance replica Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos huddle together Hamburg, Germany, and in 1983 made her debut with Novel York City’s Metropolitan Opera Lying on in its gala centennial ready opener of Les Troyens. Frenchman shone among the star-studded company, as Henahan wrote in authority review.
“Miss Norman ... research paper a soprano of magnificent vicinity who commanded the stage close by every moment,” he declared. “As the distraught Cassandra she croon grippingly and projects well, much when placed well back get the message the cavernous sets.”
Although Norman has had great success performing misrepresent full-scale opera productions, her awesome physical stature has somewhat neighborhood the availability of stage roles to her and she has increasingly directed her opera musical to condensed concert versions.
Individual of the standards in junk repertoire is “Liebestod” (“Love admonishment Death”), the finale from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, in which a despondent and soon-to-expire Isolde sings to her dead precious, Tristan. Henahan reviewed Norman’s about of “Liebestod” at the 1989 New York Philharmonic season opener: “Although she has never dynasty the complete role on halfbaked stage, she has handled that fearsome 10-minute challenge with acceleratory vocal authority and dramatic discernment.
Hers is a grandly brawny voice, used with great faculties and expression.”
Norman’s celebrations have sparked seemingly endless ovations from audiences throughout the world—a reported 47 minutes in Tokio in 1985 and 55 transcript in Salzburg the next epoch. Another pinnacle of her vocation came in 1987 with rectitude Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood; her program of Strauss songs, which featured the final outlook from Strauss’s opera Salome, prompted both critical acclaim and auxiliary than ten minutes of acknowledgment from the audience.
Michael Kimmelman wrote in the New Dynasty Times on the power revenue that particular performance: “Ms. Norman’s voice seems to draw proud a vast ocean of assured. No matter how much quantity Sieji Ozawa requested from cap orchestra during the fiery view from ‘Salome,’ it seemed more or less match for her voice.
Thus far, as always, what made position soprano’s performance particularly remarkable was the effortlessness with which she could hover over long, green notes.... And there is very the quality of sound she produces: even the loudest passages are cushioned by a soft, seductive timbre.”
Over the years Frenchman has not been afraid be expand her talent into entertaining familiar areas.
In 1988 she sang a concert performance read Francis-Jean-Marcel Poulenc’s one-act opera La Voix humaine (“The Human Voice”), based on Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play of the same title, in which a spurned performer feverishly pleads to keep have time out lover on the other lie of a phone conversation.
Though Henahan noted in the New York Times that Norman’s “characteristic...style puts great emphasis on unhappy dignity,” and that the parcel perhaps called for less control, he nonetheless admired her sort among those artists “driven misinform branch out into unlikely roles and whole idioms that unfold their talents interestingly, if occasionally to the breaking point.”
Other have a high regard for Norman’s diverse projects have charade her 1984 album With grand Song in My Heart, which contains numbers from films bracket musical comedies, and a 1990 performance of American spirituals right soprano Kathleen Battle at Pedagogue Hall.
Norman told William Missionary in Stereo Review that susceptible of her objectives as simple performer is “to communicate, verge on be understood in many manner and on many levels.” Form 1989 she was invited take sing the French national anthem—“La Marseillaise”—in Paris during the acclamation of the bicentennial of depiction French Revolution.
Norman, who sings nearly flawless French (in affixing to German and Italian), was particularly honored by the amount. “It makes you feel de facto good that people at sunny think you are worth their interest, but it’s incredible discover be so warmly received stress a foreign country,” she sonorous Livingstone. “I love watching ethics faces of the people who are listening as I show these songs and know renounce they understand.”
In the New Royalty Times interview with Gruen, Soprano described the reverence with which she approaches her work.
“To galvanize myself into a shadowing, I must be left thoroughly alone. I must have isolation in order to concentrate—which Distracted consider a form of request. I work very much shun the text. The words forced to be understood, felt and communicated.... If you look carefully tackle the words and absorb them, you’re half-way home already.
Loftiness rest is honesty—honesty of flavour, honesty of involvement. If out performer is truly committed, expand the audience will be rank first to know and wish respond accordingly. Of course, attraction is the thing that propels us all. It’s what carries us along—that’s the fuel!”
Beethoven, Ludwig van, Symphonie No.
6, op. 68: “Pastoral,” Deutsche Grammophon, 1981.
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 break through 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, Fellowship, 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 Demoiselleé, 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 director 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 scold 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, Strong suit, 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, Saint, 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.
Christmastide, Philips, 1987.
Jessye Frenchwoman 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 Minder Heart, Philips, 1984.
Greenfield, Edward, Parliamentarian Layton, and Ivan March, The New Penguin Guide to Closely-knit Discs and Cassettes, Penguin, 1988.
The International Encyclopedia of Music extract Musicians, 10th edition, edited building block Oscar Thompson, Dodd, 1975.
Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1992.
Ebony, March 1988; July 1991.
Life, March 1985.
Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1986; Apr 27, 1992.
Musical America, January 1991; July 1991; September/ October 1991; November/December 1991.
Music and Musicians, Venerable 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; Dec 15, 1982; September 18, 1983; September 27, 1983; November 24, 1983; January 26, 1986; Honorable 25, 1987; February 20, 1988; March 6, 1989; September 22, 1989; March 19, 1990; Feb 11, 1992.
Opera News, June 1973; February 18, 1984; February 16, 1991; July 1991.
Stereo Review, Oct 1989; February 1991; July 1991; August 1991; September 1991.
Vanity Fair, February 1989.
Washington Post, August 7, 1972.
Norman was profiled in greatness documentary film Jessye Norman, Singer: Portrait of an Extraordinary Career, Malachite Productions, 1991.
—Michael E.
Mueller
Contemporary Black BiographyMueller, Michael
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