Legacy Leaders - Jessye Norman
Our next Legacy Leader comes from within the Next Leadership team. Sarah Gilbert shares on the dazzling talent of opera diva Jessye Norman
Jessye Norman 1945 - 2019
It is hard to express the quality of Jessye Norman’s voice, the opulence of tone, the emotions felt when she sings, the sheer space it occupies. Extraordinary. Sublime. A gift from God. Her voice makes all the cliches make sense. As a fledgling singer some years ago, Ms. Norman was my first experience of what true greatness really sounds like, unlike the distant beauty of my other inspirations Callas and Ponselle, this lady was living, she was present… in my lifetime. Her repertoire expanded my horizons… to me, she represented infinite possibility and she changed the way I listen to, understand, and appreciate music.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA to a musical family, Ms Norman experienced her childhood in a supportive but segregated world. Her talent was identified early, playing the piano, singing in church and for the local community, later discovering opera listening to the radio. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in music from Howard University and studied at the University of Michigan and Peabody Institute. Fame was found first in Europe, before in her native country; her belated debut at the Metropolitan Opera occurring over a decade after her first performances.
Following in the footsteps of pioneering black opera singers Marion Anderson, Grace Bumbry, Mattiwilda Dobbs and Leontyne Pryce, Ms. Norman faced similar challenges; the expectation she would sing in ‘exotic’ operas, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida and, naturally, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Stating ‘pigeonholes are more comfortable for pigeons’, Ms Norman pursued the works she wanted to perform, those of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Henry Purcell, and Leos Janácek. Her determination and rule breaking also represented on stage, in her refusal to lighten her skin, for the ‘comfort’ of her audiences.
“They have made it possible for me to say, ‘I will sing French opera’, or ‘I will sing German opera,’ instead of being told, ‘You will sing Porgy and Bess.’ Look, it’s unrealistic to pretend that racial prejudice doesn’t exist. It does! It’s one thing to have a set of laws, and quite another to change the hearts and minds of men. That takes longer. I do not consider my blackness a problem. I think it looks rather nice.”
-Jessye Norman
At the height of her fame, Ms. Norman was in demand on the global stage, performing at the inaugurations of two American presidents, the funeral of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and at the memorial service for the victims of the Twin Towers terrorist attacks. She performed ‘God Save the Queen’ for Queen Elizabeth II and ‘La Marseillaise’ for the 200th anniversary of Bastille Day.
She was inspirational in demonstrating ‘black music’ - that of jazz, gospel, and spirituals, as part of the same story as classical music. Retiring in the 1990s from operatic stage, Ms Norman continued to showcase and collaborate with other black artists on multi-disciplinary projects, creating genre defining performances and works. In 2003 she co-created the Jessye Norman School of the Arts, a free after-school arts programme, dedicated to developing students to become creative, caring, visionary, responsible citizens through the transformative power of the arts. A strong advocate of highlighting and celebrating black artists. One of her last projects, Call Her by Her Name! is a portrait of trailblazing yet unconventional international singer, Sissieretta Jones.
‘I would like to go to symphony orchestras in this country and see the orchestra look more like the demographics that they’re meant to serve. I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you’re going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.’
-Jessye Norman
Opera singer demographics in the US show 70.5% as White, 12.3% as Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Black or African American and 5.4% Asian. Offstage the numbers are equally unfavourable. A recent study, by Opera America, found that only about a fifth of employees and board members at opera companies in the United States and Canada identify as people of colour, compared with 39% of the general population. In recent years however, The Metropolitan Opera has staged Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terence Blanchard, and Detroit Opera, X: The Life of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis. Small steps in an area much in need of a significant increase in diversity.
I had set myself a limit of three of Ms Norman’s performances to share, but in attempting this I have failed. It would be an injustice to her astounding repertoire not to include the links I have here, so… think of this as a mini mix-tape and, if you can, grab a drink, take some quiet time and lose yourself for a short while. (You won’t regret it!).
Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix – Samson et Dalila - Camille Saint-Saëns.
‘Dido's Lament’ When I am laid in earth - Dido and Aeneas – Henry Purcell
Les Chemins De L'amour – Francis Poulenc (Montreux Jazz Festival)
If you can spare the time, I strongly recommend spending an extra half hour listening to:
Vier letzte Lieder – Richard Strauss, Jessye Norman & Kurt Masur
‘I am deeply spiritual; I revel in those things that make for good - the things that we can do to shed a little light, to help place an oft-dissonant universe back in tune with itself... Long live art, long live friendship, long live the joy of life!’
-Jessye Norman
