Jessye Norman: The Divine Miss N

Jessye Norman is the quintessential diva, but she has made the world her stage in more ways than one.
By MaryAlice Bitts
SUNDAYNEWS (LANCASTER, PA.)
March 24, 2002

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - If you were to channel Jessye Norman's spirit into the body of a fruit fly, she would still command the attention of every person in a 5,000-seat theater, simply by entering the room.

Her towering, regal stature is softened by the wide, luminous smile of a movie star. Add a sparkling soprano voice, ranging from whisper-soft pianissimos to fortes that resonate like a cathedral organ, and you have an old-school opera diva with Grace Kelly class.

Sunday, April 7, Norman will bring that voice and stage presence to Barshinger Hall at Franklin & Marshall College for a recital of Schubert's "Winter Journey." Typically, her engagement sold out within days of its announcement.

"I chose these very wonderful songs of Schubert's because I thought that this wonderful new performing arts complex that you have there might be a perfect place for them," she explained, in a recent phone interview.

"I won't be in a space that seats 3,000 or 4,000 people, so the intimacy of the piece will lend itself very well (to the size of the venue). And the acoustics will be helpful, so that the quiet songs can be done very quietly."

At 56, Norman is arguably the most famous and most respected opera singer of this generation. Her incredible voice has taken her around the world, earning her requests to sing at presidential inaugurations and garnering high awards from the heads of many nations.

She is the youngest recipient of the United States' mark of highest artistic achievement, the Kennedy Center Award; an honorary ambassador for the United Nations; and a member of the French Legion of Honor. The French even named an orchid after her.

Six months after the September 11 attack on America, Norman stood with President Bush and sang "God Bless America" to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks. Of all of the Americanvoices at the government's disposal, she was selected to express our nation's healing and resolve. She had, on that day, become the sound of America itself.

The woman behind the public image, however, is a paradox. Some interviewers portray her as an engaging and spiritual personality. Others hint that she is humorless and impatient and had hung them out to dry.

"There are not a lot of things written about me that are actually true," Norman said in that pleasant but carefully measured way that only authentic opera divas or members of the aristocracy can pull off.

Her voice is commanding and rich, with no hint of her Augusta, Ga., origins in it. It tells the world that this is not a person who would suffer fools -- or ill-prepared conductors, musicians or journalists -- gladly.


"But the one quote that I did actually say, very early in my performing life, is, "Pigeonholes are only comfortable for pigeons'," she said with a rich, warm laugh.

She speaks a bit imperiously, but she becomes increasingly down to earth as topics shift to subjects of special interest.

The Knicks, for example. ("Even with their having the most miserable season of all time, I'm still there for them! I still care!")

And, of course, music.

Norman meant what she said about refusing to be pigeonholed. Having established herself as an opera singer with an extraordinarily varied classical repertoire, she broke from the mold and recorded several spiritual albums. Her 1998-99 season also included a Carnegie Hall recital with an unusual twist: sacred music by Duke Ellington, scored for a jazz combo. And in a 2001 Carnegie Hall performance, after presenting a traditionally classical evening of Debussy, Berlioz and Strauss, she sat down at the piano bench and sang an a capella version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" that blew the audience away.

Last year, she sent the opera world reeling when she released a jazz CD, "I Was Born in Love With You," which she cut with jazz legends Ron Carter, Grady Tate and Michel Legrand.

CLASSICAL MUSICIANS perform music as written. Jazz musicians are expected to improvise on a written score. That marriage between the classical and jazz worlds, the vocal equivalent of what the Marsalis family achieved instrumentally, testifies to her musical flexibility and her willingness to put her career on the line.

"Very often we seem to forget that the printed page is meant to be a guide, and that in order for the music to live, we have to bring it to life. With jazz musicians, we seem to know this from the very beginning," she said. "Everyone seems to be able to work together so much more willingly, and to leave one's ego at the door. It is a great relief."

She will continue to explore other musical genres, she said. "I might do a little conducting of vocal music. I expect that, for an orchestra, I'd probably talk too much."

She may also pursue theatrical roles. A highly expressive singer who studied acting in London, she has received rave reviews for the dramatic aspect of her operatic performances.

"I've been very tempted to do serious plays," she said. My dream role would probably be (17th-century playwright) Racine's "Phaedra" (a woman who, in the tradition of Greek tragedy, causes the death of the man who rejected her).

"I could possibly get my feet wet with something that wasn't quite so challenging," she added wryly.

But Norman has always been a high achiever.


As a high school graduate entering Howard University, she was torn between choosing to study music on a full scholarship or pre-medicine.

"It was rather obvious to everyone else, not to me, that I should go into music, because that was where my larger gift lie, but it hasn't in any way diminished my interest in medicine," she said.

"My brother, who is a physician, calls me a lay physician, because I do read more newsletters from medicine than he does, and I find it an amazing thing to go into a situation where people are laying on hands and healing people, and they feel better. They go home and rejoice in the fact that whatever they had has now gone away."

NORMAN ALSO HAS a passion for humanitarian causes and arts education funding.

"Whether I'm talking about children with AIDS, or people that are homeless, or people that are hungry, all of that, for me, goes together," she said. "One does have to limit one's availability, and one does have to choose, because there's no such thing as an unworthy cause. I do as much of it as I can, and not nearly as much as I wish I could."

True to form, Norman's interview was sandwiched between meetings with the Partnership for the Homeless and recordings of public service spots for a foundation that helps children with AIDS. She was also preparing to sing at the President's Ground Zero ceremony (March 11).

And, it was also Girl Scout cookie time.

Norman is a lifetime member of the Girl Scouts of America and an active, honorary member of a troop in Paris and a troop in New York State.

She still recalls being embarrassed about selling cookies door to door.

"My father was an insurance broker, and he would tell his clients, "Well, it's Girl Scout cookie time, so please buy some cookies when she shows up.' So they were prepared when I showed up, but I was still shy about it.

"But, of course, now I sell thousands of boxes of cookies, and I'm not a bit shy. I will sell cookies to anything that's breathing."

The complex woman with 30 honorary doctorates (including one from Franklin & Marshall College) relates to John Lennon's oft-quoted philosophy that "life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." But she also gives the impression that whatever happens, it will be on her own terms.

"Why should I allow anything except my own imagination to limit me?" she challenged. "Why should someone decide for me that I'm a certain kind of soprano, so therefore this is the sort of music that I should sing? I choose to sing whatever is comfortable for me, and I don't know any other way to live."
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