How can you tell when a singer particularly an opera singer - has reached the top of his or her profession? Usually their voice has hit its optimal balance between opulence and expressivity. They now sing pretty much what, where and with whom they want. And they tend not to give interviews, especially phone interviews.
No question about where soprano Jessye Norman stands on the first two. If there is a richer, more regal-sounding instrument before the public today, it is unknown to me. Nor can her recent PBS appearances and recordings leave much doubt about where she stands in today's pantheon of prima donnas, embracing everything from a galaxy of "Live From the Met" telecasts to a spirituals gala with Kathleen Battle, a pair of Christmas specials and a film, "Jessye Norman Sings Carmen," documenting her assumption of that role for Philips on a set released last year.Indeed, to my knowledge she is still the only singer to have filled the Met stage by herself for an entire performance, namely in Schoenberg's "Erwartung," telecast two years ago as part of a double bill that also featured her as Judith (opposite Samuel Ramey) in Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle." Lending new weight to Opera News' assertion that she is a singer whose "physical actuality measures up to her vocal dimensions."
But I still feel bad about that interview, especially on the eve of her first appearance with the Utah Symphony, Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 8 p.m. in Symphony Hall.
Oh, I can understand why she might be a little gun-shy at this point in her career. Interviewers in general do not always ask the best, or the kindest, questions. Nor can she be anxious to respond to queries about her last-minute defection, for what were termed personal reasons, from the world premiere of Michael Tippett's "Byzantium" with the Chicago Symphony last April, part of the gala series of concerts marking Georg Solti's departure as music director. (Solti himself publicly rappedher for that one.)
But I'd like to have asked her about that authorized biography that was supposed to come out some time back but, for some reason, has not yet made it into print. About her reported falling out with tenor Placido Domingo over his choice of another Isolde for his upcoming recording of Wagner's "Tristan." Whether there is any other Wagner in her future, beyond the occasional Sieglinde ("Die Walkuere"), Elisabeth ("Tannhaueser") and concert performances of Bruennhilde's Immolation. (Last spring she sang her first "Parsifal" ever at the Met.) Or, for that matter, any more Verdi, Strauss or Saint-Saens, particularly "Samson et Dalila," which would seem to lie perfectly for her gloriously extended mezzo.
As it happens, `My heart at thy sweet voice" from that opera was the first aria the young Jessye Norman learned to sing while growing up in her native Augusta, Ga. (She celebrated her 46th birthday last Sunday.) It was also one of the arias she elected to sing at age 16 at the Marian Anderson Foundation scholarship auditions in Philadelphia. She did not win but on the way home was taken to audition for Howard University's Carolyn Grant, who recommended that she be awarded a full-tuition scholarship to that institution.
After graduating from Howard in 1967, Norman spent one semester at the Peabody Conservatory before moving on to the University of Michigan, where she studied with Pierre Bernac. The following year she took first prize in the International Music Competition in Munich, returning home to sing a "Messiah" and a solo recital in Washington, D.C., that prompted critic Paul Hume to write, "So great is the future promise in Jessye Norman that her singing, which is today immensely moving and exciting, can only be heard as the prelude to something quite extraordinary."
(I ran into Hume last spring at the U. of Michigan following a concert Norman had sung at her alma mater two days before and he had no occasion to retract his words.)
Extraordinary is the word, as are velvety, sensuous, powerful and resplendent, all of which have been applied to her voice. In fact so radiant is her 1983 Philips recording of Strauss' Four Last Songs - one of her earliest CDs - that all by itself it inspired a colleague of mine at Musical America to finally take the plunge and invest in a player. (Later when I asked her what she liked best about it, meaning the player, her answer was, "Jessye Norman.")
Again as it happens, the Strauss songs will figure on her Utah Symphony program this Wednesday, as will the dramatic aria "Ah! Perfido," by Beethoven, something denied her Ann Arbor audience last spring thanks to a last-minute substitution.
Music director Joseph Silverstein has chosen to set these off with more Beethoven and Strauss, specifically the former's Symphony No. 8 and the latter's "Don Juan." Tickets range in price from $15 to $33, with special $50 tickets available that will also admit the bearer to a post-concert reception the soprano herself is expected to attend.
If so, you'll get closer than I ever have.
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