Time for a diva with some multicultural flava.
Let me introduce your ass to Miss Jessye Norman, honey.
Miss Norman was the singer whose recordings introduced me to the operas of Richard Wagner. Although I've since enjoyed the work of the more traditional Wagnerian sopranos such as Birgit Nilsson and Astrid Varnay, I still come back to La Norman when what I want is to have a cocktail, turn the volume as far up as it'll go (without causing an explosion), and envelop myself in swirling, floating, tumbling Wagnerian fabulousness.
Born in 1945 in Augusta, Georgia, Miss Norman was trained at Howard University, the Peabody Conservatory (Baltimore), and the University of Michigan. She went on to establish a solid career in the European opera houses before her career took off in the United States. A large woman, she was given the moniker "Just Enormous" (as a simultaneously snarky and loving play on her first and last name). Despite the occasional comment about her weight, she proceeded to carve out a career for herself that crossed several operatic genres and voice types. I, for one, love the fact that she didn't limit herself to a specific fach, but just referred to herself as "soprano" and sang whatever fit nicely into her voice.
I had the opportunity to meet Jessye Norman in Columbus in 1994. She had just completed a delightful recital during which one of the local yokels in the fourth row decided she was taking too much time between songs, that he had had enough of it, and that the answer was the stand up, throw his program at her, and walk out. My friend Margaret Mack, being the fabulously quirky soprano that she is, stood right up and walked over to the man's now-empty seat and sat down next to his wife. (The seat was better than the one Margaret had been given.) The wife was, naturally, mortified. La Norman vowed afterward never to return to Columbus, which she didn't. But that night when I met her, she was gracious and friendly. She also had a speaking voice that would have told me immediately that she was a trained singer, whether I had been a voice pathologist or not.
Norman lives in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, in a secluded estate named "The White Gates" which she purchased from Allan Funt, the creator and host of the television show "Candid Camera".
Check out the clip, below. It's La Norman singing the aria known as Liebestod (translation: love-death), from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. (Wagner referred to the area as the Verklarung, or the transfiguration). In this aria, which is arguably one of the most beloved and overwhelming moments in all of opera, Norman (as Isolde) laments the death of her lover, Tristan. She sings of love, longing, transformation, and at the last note of the aria, collapses next to Tristan's body and dies of overwhelming grief.
A horrifically difficult aria from a technical standpoint, it occurs at the very end of act III after which the soprano has been duking it out with Wagner's masterpiece for hours on end. Mastery of this aria, in the context of the opera as a whole, is a milestone for any dramatic soprano's career.
The final lyrics:
Soll ich atmen,
Soll ich lauschen?
Soll ich schlürfen
untertauchen?
Süß in Düften
mich verhauchen?
In dem wogenden Schwall
in dem tönenden Schall
in des Welt-Atems wehendem All
ertrinken
versinken
unbewußt
höchste Lust!
Translation:
Shall I breathe,
Shall I listen?
Shall I drink,
immerse?
Sweetly in fragrances
melt away?
In the billowing torrent,
in the resonating sound,
in the wafting Universe of the World-Breath ---
drown,
be engulfed ---
unconscious ---
supreme delight!
Indeed.
