Jessye Norman

American opera singer

• Born: September 15, 1945
• Birthplace: Augusta, Georgia
• Died: September 30, 2019
• Place of death: Manhattan, New York

Gifted with an extraordinary voice, Jessye Norman established herself as one of the leading figures on the opera stage in the late twentieth century and as a recording artist with an unusually broad repertoire.

Early Life

Jessye Norman (JEHS-see NOHR-man) was born one of five children to Silas Norman, an insurance agent, and Janie Norman, a teacher. The Normans were a prosperous, middle-class black family from Augusta, Georgia, whose children were expected to attend college. Norman grew up hoping to become a doctor or a nurse. Although she admired the singing of Leontyne Price, whom she recalls hearing when she was very young, and Marian Anderson, whom she saw on television when she was about eleven, she did not think that a person could simply decide to become a singer. Her family was quite musical; her father sang in church, her mother played piano, and she and all of her siblings took piano lessons from an early age. Norman first performed in public when she was only six, singing “Jesus Is Calling,” and spent her childhood singing at church and in school; although people often commented on her ability, she thought nothing of it.

When Norman was thirteen, it was suggested to her parents that she start voice lessons, but they refused. Norman later commended her parents for what she saw as their good judgment in this area. She was convinced that too much training too early would have resulted in damage to such a heavy voice as her own. Norman sang as often as she could, performing for the Girl Scouts, in Sunday school, and at PTA meetings. She began learning arias with the help of her high school music teacher and listened to Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons.

When Norman was sixteen, she entered the Marian Anderson Foundation scholarship auditions in Philadelphia, at the encouragement of her music teacher. She did not win anything, but on the way back from the auditions, she was introduced to Carolyn Grant, a voice teacher at Howard University. Grant was so impressed with Norman’s voice that she asked the university to offer Norman a full four-year scholarship to Howard. The offer was made immediately, even though Norman was not able to take advantage of it until her graduation from Lucy C. Laney Senior High School in central Atlanta a year and a half later. Norman matriculated at Howard in the fall of 1963. She was graduated in 1967 with an honors degree in music.

Life’s Work

Although Norman had not had formal voice lessons before her years at Howard University, her voice had been well exercised and developed during high school. Her teachers in later years encouraged her to specialize in a single voice classification, but she soon expanded her repertoire. Mezzo-soprano, spinto, dramatic soprano, and lyric soprano—most of these labels were applied to her vocal range at different times. At the beginning of her career, she was most commonly identified as a mezzo, but her upper range was developed enough to allow her to sing roles few mezzos would even attempt. In Berlin, from 1969 to 1975, Norman was expected to be able to perform in roles that ranged from high coloratura to dramatic parts. By the early 1990s, she was generally recognized as a dramatic soprano, although she continued to perform other roles.

Howard University provided Norman with a community that allowed her to grow musically and personally. Besides her formal vocal training under Carolyn Grant, Norman became a paid soloist at two churches in the Washington, DC, area; she also served as president of her sorority and as a member of various student government and music organizations. After her graduation, Norman went to study with Alice Duschak at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. She was not happy there, however, and transferred after only one semester to the University of Michigan, where she studied with Pierre Bernac and Elizabeth Mannion with scholarships from the Institute of International Education and several music foundations. Her work with Bernac, especially, led to her development of a large repertoire of art songs, focusing particularly on the French chanson. She completed a master’s degree in music in 1968.

During both her undergraduate and graduate years, Norman participated in several vocal competitions. In 1965, she won first place in the National Society of Arts and Letters competition. She helped fund her graduate study by auditioning for the William Mathews Sullivan Music Foundation. In 1968, she entered and won the International Music Competition in Munich. This honor resulted in several professional offers to work in Germany, and Norman moved to West Berlin in 1969. She signed a three-year contract with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and made her operatic debut that same year as Elizabeth in Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The Berlin opera, like most European operas, expected its singers to fill in as needed on various parts. During her time in Berlin, Norman expanded her repertoire to include the unusually large number of operas Berlin considered standard. On the completion of her first contract, Norman signed for another three years, but she did not complete this contract. Unhappy with her lack of freedom to choose her own roles, she resigned from the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1975.

While working with the Berlin opera, Norman had made debuts all over the world. In 1970, she appeared in Florence, Italy, singing George Friedrich Handel’s Deborah, and in 1972, she sang as Aïda at La Scala in Milan. Also in 1972, Norman made her American opera debut in the same role, at the Hollywood Bowl under the direction of James Levine. A few months later, she debuted at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London, singing a role that later won her even greater acclaim, that of Cassandra in Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz.

Despite the glowing reviews of her performances in these years, Norman was not satisfied. Although known for the wide variety of works she performs, in both style and vocal range, Norman had been exceedingly careful in avoiding roles she believed were unsuitable for her. The expectation that she act as a useful fill-in soprano at the Berlin opera went against the grain, and on her resignation, Norman left opera altogether until 1980. From 1975 to 1980, she performed recitals of lieder and chanson, orchestral concerts, and opera excerpts throughout Europe and North and South America.

Norman consistently recorded much of her repertoire, and her recordings earned for her the most critical acclaim. Not willing to limit herself to the tried and true, Norman recorded opera, spirituals, the songs of Francis Poulenc, Erik Satie, and Jean-Philippe Rameau, lieder by composers from Gustav Mahler to Gabriel Fauré to Igor Stravinsky, the sacred music of Duke Ellington, and the work of contemporary composers often ignored by other musicians. For instance, in 2000, she premiered woman.life.song, a cycle composed by Judith Weir with text by Maya Angelou, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.

In 1971, Norman signed an exclusive recording contract with Philips Classics, which expanded to include London and Deutsche Grammophon when the companies joined under one label. Despite sometimes uneasy relations with music companies in the 1980s, she was featured in more than ninety recordings. In addition to classical music, she made an album of musical comedy and film songs, With a Song in My Heart (1984), and a jazz album, Jessye Norman Sings Michel Legrand (2000). The recording company EMI issued The Very Best of Jessye Norman in 2003.

Eventually Norman decided to return to opera. In 1983, she finally made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York, once again as Cassandra in Les Troyens. She alternated this role with that of Dido in the same opera, switching off with Tatiana Troyanos throughout the season. On one memorable night during the first season, Norman ended up singing both roles in a single performance when the singer scheduled as Dido had to cancel. After her Metropolitan Opera debut, Norman continued her concert tours and expanded her roles each year. She sang the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, before a television audience of millions for the French bicentennial. She performed regularly for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and made history at that venue with her performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung, the company’s first one-character production, in 1989.

She has been widely respected for her acting ability and her capacity to communicate on many levels through her music. She sang for the second inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1985 and for President Bill Clinton in 1997 and for the sixtieth birthday celebration of Queen Elizabeth II. In 2002, she sang “America the Beautiful” for a memorial service unveiling a monument honoring those who died during the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. She also appeared as a narrator or singer in numerous films and television programs. Each summer, she appeared at prestigious music festivals such as Tanglewood and Salzburg.

The late 2000s found Norman continuing to tour Europe and the United States extensively, performing jazz, sacred music, or classic European pieces in various recitals, orchestral concerts, and music festivals. In 2007, she was named artist in residence for the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. Later that same year, her jazz concert program, The Duke and the Diva, whose title refers to her performance of works by jazz giant Duke Ellington, premiered in Spain. It went on to be the series opener for the University of Maryland's 2008–9 season and was performed at the Festival International Echternach in Luxembourg.

Norman's next major project was curating HONOR!, a festival held March 4–23, 2009, at Carnegie Hall to celebrate and commemorate the African American musical heritage. The festival produced half a dozen free concerts and a middle school curriculum on African American music. Norman and Laura Karpman's "Ask Your Mama," a piece based on Langston Hughes's long poem of the same name, premiered there to great popular acclaim.

In 2010, Norman released her first solo recording in a decade, Roots: My Life, My Song, a varied collection reflecting her early influences, from jazz to spirituals to African drumming to popular song. The album received mixed reviews from critics, some of whom were distressed that she had not included works by European masters whose works she had spent her professional life singing and found that her vocalizations and the acoustics of the live recording were not up to their standards.

Norman has also been concerned with the education of young people. The Jessye Norman School for the Arts is one of three programs of the Rachel Longstreet Foundation of Augusta. An after-school program for candidates in the sixth through eighth grades, the school trains accepted students in drama, dance, visual arts, and music until the end of their high school years. She also served as a trustee of Howard University and Paine College, and as a board member for the New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Augusta Opera Association, among other organizations.

Beginning with its very first concert in October 2011, Norman has participated in Muse/ique, a Pasadena, California–based orchestra and multidisciplinary arts organization that incorporates an eclectic mix of styles and genres into its live performances. In addition to producing a summer concert series, its member artists offer learning opportunities to area youth.

Norman has won many honors in addition to glowing reviews and a large contingent of fans. She has been awarded some forty honorary doctorates, from institutions such as Howard, Michigan, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, and Brandeis University, as well as the Boston Conservatory and the Juilliard School of Music. She has also become an honorary fellow of Harvard and Cambridge Universities as well as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is said to have been the inspiration for the French film Diva (1980) by Jean-Jacques Beineix, based on the obsession of a French fan who spent his entire income to attend Norman’s concerts throughout Europe and to send her armloads of flowers; the film was released in the United States in 1982. In 1984, the French government named her a commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and President François Mitterrand presented her with the Legion of Honor in 1989. Also in 1989, UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar appointed her an honorary ambassador to the United Nations. She was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, the youngest recipient ever, and the same year, she won the Radcliffe Medal. In 2000, she won an Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal. Four of Norman's recordings have earned Grammy Awards, three for best opera recording (1988, 1989, 1998) and one for best classical vocal soloist performance (1984), and in 2006, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The following year, Purchase College, part of the State University of New York, awarded Norman its inaugural Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for music. In 2010, President Barack Obama presented her with the National Medal of the Arts. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recognized Norman with its Spingarn Award in 2013.

Norman continued to maintain her family ties and returned to Georgia when she could. She had homes in London and in Westchester County, New York. Although Norman was careful to keep her private life private, she devoted much time to charitable work, raising money for black colleges, the Save the Children campaign, and the Girl Scouts and serving as spokesperson for the Partnership for the Homeless and the Lupus Foundation.

Significance

Norman made a lasting impression on the music world. Critics usually place her among the greatest opera singers, and her popularity made her one of most highly paid performers of classical music. She had the rare quality of refusing to conform to the images others had of her. Her 1989 recording of Bizet’s Carmen, for example, is not the standard interpretation of the part that most performers try to duplicate. Although she said she did not deliberately try to be different, her aim was to interpret the role so as to make it a comfortable role for herself. Her independence, both in interpretations and in her choice of music to perform and record, helped to broaden the offerings to the musical public. As New York Times critic Donald Henahan wrote, “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.”

Norman was reticent about her life outside music, but she stated that she needed to feel connected to the world around her. She was concerned about political and social issues, remembering experiences from her childhood in the South before the civil rights movement. She said that being an African American artist did not make any difference to her during her career. Although her identity as an African American clearly shaped her musical interests and opportunities to some degree, it is interesting to note that her statement, made less than two decades after Marian Anderson’s debut as the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, clearly rejects the notion that racial identity imposed any significant limitations on her own career.

Norman enjoyed her reputation as an iconoclast. She disliked being referred to as a "diva" although, in the true sense of the word, no one would deny her the title because of the connotations of temperament and pettiness that have come to be associated with that term. Although she took great pride in her accomplishments, Norman also had a reputation for always arriving on time for rehearsals and for being fully prepared, unpretentious, and friendly, the epitome of professionalism. Norman’s persistent individuality and consummate musicianship were impressive.

Bibliography

Garland, Phyl. “Jessye Norman: Diva.” Ebony Mar. 1988: 52. Print. Focusing on Norman’s life outside music, this short article provides more information on her childhood than any other source. Of limited value otherwise, it has a few interesting quotes about growing up black in the South that reveal aspects of Norman’s character not seen elsewhere.

Haithman, Diane. "Jessye Norman's Grand Time as a Grande Dame." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 27 July 2011. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.

"Jessye Norman." Academy of Achievement. American Academy of Achievement, 30 Aug. 2012. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.

Karpman, Laura. "Ask Your Mama: Collaboration With Langston Hughes and Jessye Norman." Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Dec. 2013.

Livingstone, William. “Jessye Norman.” Stereo Review 54 (1989): 102. Print. A well-written article composed from interviews with Norman and includes Norman’s assessment of various roles and how she interprets them.

McCants, Clyde T. American Opera Singers and Their Recordings: Critical Commentaries and Discographies. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Print. Norman is one of the fifty-two singers for whom McCants provides a critical overview, biographical summary, and list of recordings. A handy basic resource.

Mayer, Martin, “Double Header.” Opera News 18 Feb. 1984: 8–11. Print. Although it includes little biographical material, this excellent article provides interesting critical commentary (bordering on the snide at times) on Norman’s stage and recording careers.

Mordden, Ethan. Demented: The World of the Opera Diva. New York: Watts, 1984. Print. Although this work mentions Norman specifically only a few times, it gives a picture of the world of opera unequaled elsewhere. Mordden’s explanation of the types of voices and the operatic roles written for these voices is especially helpful for anyone trying to assess Norman’s career. Knowledge of the opera repertoire is assumed. Bibliography and index included.

Mullins, Chris. "Jessye Norman—Roots: My Life, My Song." Rev. of Roots: My Life, My Song, by Jessye Norman. Opera Today. Opera Today, 8 Nov. 2010. Web. 24 Dec. 2013.

Nordlinger, Jay. “To Hell and Back with Jessye Norman.” National Review 53 (2001): 57–59. Print. A lengthy article evaluating Norman’s career and character, especially why she has been both a model and antimodel of the classical singer, and focusing on her 2000 Carnegie Hall recital.

Norman, Jessye. Interview by Tavis Smiley. Tavis Smiley Show. Smiley Group, 22 July 2011. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.

Story, Rosalyn M. And So I Sing: African-American Divas of Opera and Concert. New York: Amistad, 1993. Print. A history of African American women singers in the world of classical music, this work considers Norman in the perspective of other black artists. Index and bibliography included.

Tate, Eleanora E. African American Musicians. New York: Wiley, 2000. Print. A collection, written for young adults, that includes a section on Norman that focuses more on the facts of her background and career than on explanations of her style and performances.