(b Augusta, GA, Sept 15, 1945; d New York, Sept 30, 2019). American soprano. She studied at Howard University, the Peabody Conservatory, and the University of Michigan (with, among others, Pierre Bernac and Elizabeth Mannion). She won the Munich International Music Competition in 1968 and made her operatic début in 1969 at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, as Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), later appearing there as Countess Almaviva. Further engagements in Europe included Aïda at La Scala and Cassandra at Covent Garden, both in 1972. The following year she returned to Covent Garden as Elisabeth. For her American stage début she sang Jocasta in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Purcell’s Dido with the Opera Company of Philadelphia (1982); she appeared first at the Metropolitan Opera in 1983, once again as Cassandra. Other roles she sang include Gluck’s Alcestis, Strauss’s Ariadne, Madame Lidoine (Dialogues des Carmélites), the Woman (Erwartung), Emilia Marty (The Makropulos Affair), Bartók’s Judith, and Wagner’s Kundry and Sieglinde.

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Jessye Norman.

Laurie Lewis/Lebrecht Music and Arts

Norman sang in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (1993) in the 1990s, and she took part in numerous galas and benefit performances, including the ‘Tribute in Light’ memorial concert in New York City to honor those who died on 9/11. She continued her recital career, and expanded her repertoire to include Duke Ellington (Sacred Concerts at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, New York, 2009).

Norman had a commanding stage presence; her particular distinction lay in her ability to project drama through her voice. Her opulent and dark-hued soprano was richly vibrant in the lower and middle registers, if less free at the top; although her extraordinary vocal resources were not always perfectly controlled, her singing revealed uncommon refinement of nuance and dynamic variety. Her operatic recordings include Countess Almaviva; Haydn’s Rosina (La vera costanza) and Armida, Leonore, Euryanthe; Verdi’s Giulietta (Un giorno di regno) and Medora (Il corsaro), Carmen, Ariadne, Salome; and Offenbach’s Giuletta and Helen. Norman also appeared in jazz concerts including, in 1982, her own show A Great Day in the Morning. As her many discs reveal, she was also a penetrating interpreter of lieder and melodies, at her finest in the broader canvases of Mahler, Richard Strauss (whose Vier letzte Lieder she recorded with distinction), and Debussy.

Norman received a number of honorary doctorates (including Howard University and University of the South), the Kennedy Center Honors (1997), and the title of Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government (1984); she was made an Honorary Ambassador to the United Nations (1990). She was on the board of a number of organizations, including the New York Public Library and the Board of Trustees of Paine College in Augusta, Georgia.