There are many words that would describe Jessye Norman fairly, but the one that keeps coming to mind when you meet her face to face is grand. She moves grandly through the backstage corridors of Lyric Opera, her grand figure swaddled in flowing purple. She makes a grand entrance into an office suite, grandly extending her hand to the interviewer. She speaks in grandly melodious tones that are an extension of her singing voice.
Critics have been heaping immoderate acclaim on that voice for nearly two decades, a period that has seen the soprano from Augusta, Ga., ascend to the uppermost rung of superstardom, in opera, concerts, recitals and recordings.
Audiences adore her on every continent. The French government last year paid her the high honor of inviting her to sing the national anthem, ”La Marseillaise,” during the celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Thus millions of TV viewers saw and heard her in heroic cry, majestically borne down the Champs Elysees like a great tricolore float.
On the operatic stage her full, rich soprano and extraordinary dramatic sensibility have enabled her to set her stamp on a wide-ranging gallery of nobly suffering heroines, including Mozart`s Countess, Berlioz`s Dido and Cassandra, Rameau`s Phedre, Strauss` Ariadne, Charpentier`s Medee,
Stravinsky`s Jocasta and Bartok`s Judith.
The tragic figure of Alceste, a loving wife who sacrifices herself to save her husband`s life, is so obviously a part of this proud lineage that it is easy to understand Norman`s attraction to both the character and to Gluck`s opera of the same name.
The diva says she could not be more pleased to be singing her first American performances of ”Alceste” here in Chicago, particularly because Lyric`s director/designer is her close colleague Robert Wilson, one of America`s most innovative theater artists.
Wilson originally created his production of ”Alceste” for Norman to perform in Stuttgart in 1986, but illness prevented her from doing so. Landing the Norman-Wilson connection is thus a double coup for Lyric.
Enormous acclaim has given the diva a good idea of her worth, but during our conversation she was all modesty and grace. She chose her words carefully, emphasizing certain words with a precision that related to her having had elocution lessons as a child and having to project a variety of languages in large opera houses and concert halls.
”It`s my pleasure to be making my Chicago opera debut with this very special production,” Norman said, flashing her million dollar smile.
”The Lyric and I first started talking about my doing `Alceste` here three or four years ago. It`s very rare to find a place like the Lyric where one can rehearse comfortably. And I adore the Gluck opera, which is wonderfully written for the voice. Parts of the music sound very much like Berlioz, so it`s a very logical progression from Alceste to the Berlioz roles that I love and sing a great deal.
”Working with Bob has been a wonderful experience. It`s totally unique because he has no preconceived ideas about what is possible to do physically while singing. He doesn`t worry about whether he should let you rest now because a very long, sustained, difficult phrase lies ahead. Which, of course, helps you as a singer not to worry about it, either.
”His conception for `Alceste` is fascinating because it`s based entirely on formalized movement in the manner of Japanese theater. As Bob says, one has to look at the story of Alceste as either something from antiquity or something very, very modern. Gluck`s avoidance of showmanship in his opera and Bob`s theatrical ideas go hand in hand. It`s a remarkable artistic union.”
Norman`s operatic career is extraordinary in many respects, not least for its having been built almost entirely on non-mainstream repertoire. Some of her roles are traditionally for sopranos, some for mezzo-sopranos. She has chosen carefully among parts that she believes best suit her taste, temperament and larger-than-life stage presence. This has, in turn, restricted her appearances to those major theaters that are prepared to satisfy her requirements as to repertoire and working conditions.
Is this being ”difficult” in the classic star-ego tradition? Norman doesn`t think so.
”I want to sing what is comfortable for me,” she said.
”The fact is, not everything written for soprano or mezzo or alto-whatever we`re going to call me today-is necessarily suited to me. I must be fully involved in everything I do. The fact that I need to be absorbed by the words that I sing eliminates a lot of popular operas. Roles like Lady Macbeth and Gioconda and Leonore in `Trovatore` are nice for other singers, but the music doesn`t suit my voice.
”On the other hand, very often I have found myself drawn to the Greek heroines. They have multifaceted personalities which I find very interesting to perform on stage. I absolutely need that dramatic core to work from.
”As for my voice, it cannot be categorized. I think I am a little of anything that can possibly be concerned with the female singing voice. Terms like dramatic or spinto are used for other people`s convenience, not for the singer`s.
”I like so many different kinds of music that I`ve never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range. When you consider someone like Lilli Lehmann (the great German soprano who died in 1929), her repertoire consisted of everything that was available for her to sing at the time. And I think that`s what singing is about.”
Singing, Norman once said, ”begins in the brain.” By that, she meant that all technical matters and interpretive decisions must be worked out carefully over years of study before the artist is ready to face the public. The observation affords a revealing insight into the seriousness with which Norman regards her craft. As with so many performers, the seeming effortlessness she brings to her opera, concert and recital work is the art that conceals art.
”Earlier this year,” the singer recalled, ”I visited a Midwestern university that very kindly was giving me a degree. At the dinner the night preceding the ceremony I was seated next to this woman who happened to be a real music fan, a self-styled expert.
”Someone was asking me how I prepare music for performance, and I explained that I work quite differently, depending on whether I`ve got to create a recital program, or to prepare an opera role or whatever.
”Then this woman rather cheerfully said, `Oh, you don`t work like that. You just stand up and sing.` And I replied, `Madame, I wish what you said were the truth, but I`m afraid it is not. Believe me, it is not.”`
One of five children born into a prosperous middle-class family, Norman was encouraged to sing from the first: at home, in church, in school, with the Girl Scouts. As she grew older she began entering competitions, one of which won her a full scholarship to Howard University, in Washington, D.C., where she studied voice. She later did postgraduate study at the Peabody
Conservatory and the University of Michigan, where her teachers included the noted French baritone Pierre Bernac.
In 1968 Norman won first prize in an international competition in Munich, which resulted in a three-year contract with the Berlin Opera. The only opera she knew by memory then was Wagner`s ”Tannhauser,” and it was as Elisabeth in that work that she made her operatic debut.
After further engagements in Europe, she made her London and New York recital debuts in 1973 and her Metropolitan Opera debut a decade later in Berlioz`s ”Les Troyens.”
She will return to the Met this season to sing Kundry in a new production of Wagner`s ”Parsifal.”
Norman has, in addition, become one of today`s most accomplished concert singers and recitalists, and she is one of the few artists at her level of stardom to have made a consistent commitment to the music of living composers. In April she will join Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony for the premiere of British composer Michael Tippett`s vocal scena, ”Byzantium,” to be presented here and at New York`s Carnegie Hall. She also has championed the music of Philip Glass and has commissioned a song cycle (as yet unfinished)
from Pierre Boulez.
”I don`t know whether I have any cachet to bring to new music, but I certainly have a lot of interest in it,” Norman said.
”I would hate to be completely ignorant of music composed in my own lifetime.”
Home base since 1986 has been a rural retreat in Westchester County, Connecticut, a little more than an hour`s drive from New York City. Norman also maintains a pied-a-terre in Belgravia, the poshest district in London.
She says her crowded schedule allows her enough time to have a ”very nice, very happy” personal life, but that she would rather not talk about it. ”That keeps it private, doesn`t it?” Jessye Norman says with a wink.
———-
A cover story on the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will appear next Sunday.
