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NATIONAL BLACK NEWS SERVICE V 7
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Vol. 2
Augusta Girl Becomes
International Singing Star
By Donal Henahan
N.Y. Times, Jan. 24,1973
Up to a point, the scenario is
pure Paramount Pictures. The
young American singer wins a
couple of contests, receives
help from several foundations,
then goes to Europe for one of
the big international
competitions. She wins first
prize, is snatched up by one of
Germany’s leading opra houses,
makes a sensational debut, is
summoned as a guest artist to
La Scala, Covent Garden,
Florence. One of her
recordings is nominated for a
worldwide prize. She returns in
triumph to her native land,
sings at the Hollywood Bowl,
knocks the Eastern critics dead
with Wagner’s “Wesendonck”
Lieder at Tanglewood. Lincoln
Center acts fast and engages
her for a special recital.
Welcome home, Jessye
Norman.
*
But Miss Norman, a
27-year-old black soprano who
will make her New York debut
this afternoon at Alice Tully
Hall in Lincoln Center’s Great
Performer series, doesn’t quite
fit into the scenario outlined
above. For one thing, she’s not
planning to return to this
country to live, certainly not
just yet. She seemed firm on
that point when one met her
recently in Washington, where
she was giving a series of
recitals prior to her New York
debut.
“Germany has been very
good to me,” she says with a
smile. It’s a smile that hits the
eyes like the sudden opening of
Venetian blinds on a sunny day.
She is a big woman - really big,
somewhat on the order of
Maria Callas in her
pre-American, pasta
-advertisement days before she
lost a couple of hundred
pounds and became the world’s
most glamorous former great
singer. But the Deutsche Oper
in West Berlin not only signed
the inexperienced, black and
bulky Miss Norman to a
three-year contract in 1969,
but put her immediately in
major parts. Her debut was as
Elisabeth in“Tannhauser,” and
not long afterward she sang the
Countess Almaviva opposite
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in
“The Marriage of Figaro.” Her
new Berlin contract, recently
negotiated, keeps her there for
two and a half months a year
and lets her go roaming, a rare
arrangement in repertory opera
houses unless you are a star.
“I’m down to 10 performances
in Berlin, but I have, all in all,
about 40 recitals next season in
Europe.”
For a girl who grew up in
Augusta, Ga., Berlin plainly
offers satisfactions. “It’s so
funny there,” Miss Norman
says. “I have to call up for
groceries because it’s so painful
to go shopping. Everything in
the store just stops when you
come in. An opera singer is
really somebody there, you
know. The woman at the cash
register says, ‘O., Frau
Opemsanger Norman, how are
you? Can we help you?
“I like Europe very much. I
really don’t know if I could
come back here to live. When I
moved to Berlin in 1969 (she
had won first prize in the
Bavarian radio network music
competition in Munich the
year before), the German
people were perfectly willing
to come to hear me in opera as
well as recitals. They didn’t
know me but they were
interested in hearing the music,
and it didn’t matter that my
name wasn’t Tebaldi. It’s a
different thing over there and
you can’t help but be
appreciative. If I hadn’t gone
to Europe, I’d be beating my
brains out right now in New
York, working as a waitress
and running around to the
foundations trying to get
ahead.”
Before Munich, Ms. Norman
had taken part in nine
competitions in this country
and had auditioned for most of
the foundations that do in for
assisting young musicians (in
her case, the Rockefeller, the
Walter Mathaus Sullivan and
Corbett Foundations helped).
“But I’d hate to do it all again.
I take singing too seriously
now. Then I never worried
about winning or anything else.
In that one school year of
1967-68, it was a very natural
thing for me to get up in the
morning, sort of clear the
throat and go sing for
somebody. Now I’ve learned to
worry. And I have to vocalize a
lot now before singing -1 have
this nasal drip. When I call
room service for breakfast, the
man always say, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”
She remembers her first
competition clearly. “I was 7,
and the contest was at the
Mount Calvary Baptist Church
in Augusta, Ga. 1 sang ‘God
Will Take Care Os You,’ and I
only won third prize because I
forgot the second stanza. In
fact, I guess He has taken care
of me. That was my last
memory slip in public.” In
spite of that early start, Miss
Norman began singing for a
living only three years ago,
after moving to Berlin. She had
sung in the Howard University
chorus and given a few small
recitals around Washington
before that, but contests and
auditions were her way of life.
While she was in high school
in Augusta in 1961, Miss
Norman was taken to
Philadelphia by one of her
teachers to audition for a
Marian Anderson award (“We
went on a train, and the school
took up a collection to raise
the money”). Since the Marian
Anderson contest was pretty
much the big time, with an age
limit of 32, the 16-year-old
student from Augusta made no
great impression. But on the
way home, her teacher decided
to drop in at Howard
University in Washington to
have her sing for the voice
teacher there. Miss Norman
came away with a full
scholarship to Howard, leaving
there in 1967 with a music
degree.
“And do you know, the
woman 1 sang for that day is
the same woman with whom I
had a lesson today, just before
I came to talk to you. She’s
Carolyn Grant, who’s been a
professor at Howard for 51
years. She’s 74 now, and looks
50. An incredible woman. She
knows how to communicate
with me. She knows my voice,
my temperament. She knows
when I’m not really singing but
just making pretty sounds. If I
could do everything she tells
me to do - gosh - it would
really be something. That’s
why I keep coming back here.
Berlin is rather far from
Washington, but I’m here fairly
P.O. Box 953
® J- 1 B
JESSYE NORMAN
often.”
After Howard came an
unhappy summer at the
Peabody Conservatory in
Baltimore, but the “rat race,
the terrible competitiveness
there was just not my scene at
all,” so she went to the
University of Michigan to
study with one of the world’s
leading teachers in art song,
Pierre Bernac. Although
scholarships and foundation
grants helped in all this, Miss
Norman did not come
struggling up out of the ghetto.
She from that currently
neglected minority group, the
educated, genteel, black
bourgeoisie. Father, an
insurance broker. Mother, an
amateur pianist. “I’m one of
five children and we’re all
musical, though I’m the only
professional musician. We all
studied piano because our
parents insisted on it. No,
actually we all liked it.”
She seems to wear her
blackness with more ease than
many of her contemporaries.
“I don’t feel guilty about
making it in a largely white or
European world - not at all.
Though I suppose if I stayed in
the United States long, I might
come to feel that way. As it is,
black people come backstage
after I sing here and say to me,
“You make us feel so proud.’ I
think you have to do what you
do best. Some people ask me
why I don’t sing jazz or
spirituals. I can’t sing them,
that’s why.
Like most people of talent
who change their lives
drastically, Miss Norman finds
it hard to go home again, in the
Thomas Wolfe sense. Her
speech has become extremely
cultivated, with touches of a
German accent, or sometimes
an Oxford accent, “When I go
back to Georgia they say to
me, ‘Oh you sound so funny.’ I
tell them, ‘You should hear
yourself, darling, it’s you who
sound funny.’ ” Even within
her family circle, she finds
some lack of comprehension.
“I have this godmother, for
instance. I’ve just come home
after having sung Aida at La
Scala, you know, so proud I
can hardly stand it. And she
says, ‘Jessye, when are you
going to go back to Michigan
and get your master’s degree?’
For what? 1 have friends with
Ph. D’s who work here in
Washington in the Post Office.
Because her talent has to a
great extent set her free of that
America, Miss Norman can
laugh a bit at what problems
still linger. “When I get into a
taxi, the driver sometimes will
say, ‘Are you from the West
Indies, or Barbados or some
place? And I say, ‘No, I’m
from Geawgah, honey.’ The
trouble is, I speak to someone
for two minutes and
unconsciously I start
mimicking the accent or even i
speech defect. It’s terribly
embarrasing sometimes.”
For a singer, however, that
kind of keenness of ear makes
life easier. For her New York
recital, Miss Norman plans a
program to include Schubert,
Wolf, many be some Mahler,
and Ravel’s “Two Hebriac
Songs.” “When I sing Hebrew
in New York, I’d better be able
to pronounce it right,” she
says. “I sing a lot of French
songs, actually, but I’ll be
touring in France this season
and I still don’t speak French
very well. You know I could
make love to a French taxi
driver, but 1 would have
trouble telling him how to get
me to the rehearsal hall.”
Since her move to Berlin,
things have opened up fast for
Miss Norman. Aida at La Scala
and the Hollywood Bowl, the
leading role in “L’Africana” at
the opening of the 1971
Florence Festival, Cassandra in
“Les Troyens” at Covent
Garden, Wolf Trap and
Tanghwood last summer,
Edinburgh, Spoleto.
Perhaps the biggest
breakthrough so far came when
her recording company,
Phillips, picked her to record
the Countess in “The Marriage
of Figaro” with Colin Davis
conducting. Not long ago that
See Miss Norman - P. 2
EDITORIAL
NIXON CUTBACKS
Guest Editorial
By Charles F. Smith, Board Chairman
C.S.R.A. Economic Opportunity Authority
It is totally obvious at this point that President Nixon
intends to impose stern measures on the nation’s
economy, especially at the Federal level. No thoughtful
person can object to attempts to put a check on deficit
spending.
The priorities of the President are seriously
questionable, however. The unyielding austerity
measures employed by him strike first at the ones who
can afford it least; the poor and education (especially
Black Colleges). The dismantling of the Office of
Economic Opportunity and the cutting of Federal aid to
Education are examples.
Granted that Congress has allowed the Executive
Branch to assume power that is constitutionally
questionable, the wise President would use this power in
the best interest of all as oppose to the wealthy few.
The open attacks on the programs needed so badly by
the poor, the impoundment of funds, the open attacks
on the news media, the string of broken promises of this
administration to the people of this country all mean
that we are closer to absolute rule than ever before.
Benign neglect can’t even describe the attitude that
promotes these austerity measures.
Those who argued that the money we were spending
in Viet Nam should be spent to solve domestic problems
exhibit great insight, it is perfectly clear that the
priorities of the Nixon administration are not in this
direction, however.
The local governments must act to compensate for
the warped priorities of the President. Revenue-sharing
provides a means to continue the help to the poor and
aged. The needs must be made known now as never
before and the local governments must assume greater
responsibility for health, housing, and welfare of the
citizens.
On a national scale, Congress is a hope for us. But the
poor must act so that our displeasure with the present
priorities of the President can be made crystal clear to
Congress and the President. The time WAS November 7,
1972. But it IS now.
Augusta, Georgia
Pilgrim Gives Its Second
Thousand To "Build It Back”
W.S. Hornsby, Jr., President
of The Pilgrim Health and Life
Insurance Company,
Man Shoots Wife
Burglaries Continue
To Plague Community
announced yesterday another
contribution of SI,OOO to
Paine College for the purpose
of re-building Haygood Hall.
“The Company will support
Paine College on an annual
bases for some time to come.
We have a sincere desire to see
that the “Build It Back”
Campaign culminate in the
building of Haygood Hall.
“Last year Pilgrim gave
several thousant dollars to
young people throughout the
Southeast who were entering
college for the first time.
“Our College Educational
program started five years ago
MALLORY K. MILLENDER
NEWS-REVIEW JOINS
BLACK NEWS SERVICE
News-Review
Editor-Publisher Mallory K.
Millender attended the
mid-Winter Workshop of the
National Newspaper Publishers
Association in Washington,
D.C., January 24-27. The
theme of the workshop was
“Extending the Reach of Black
Publishers.”
Millender said the workshop
was designed to find ways of
increasing circulation and ways
publishers may benefit from
government programs.
February 1, 1973 No. 46
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Millender Attends
NNPA Workshop
See Police Report - P. 4
and during that time we have
given enormous amounts of
scholarships. So this thousand
today is just another way of
supporting higher education in
an effort to raise economic
base of the “Have Nots!”
Shown presenting the check
is C.O. Hollis, First Vice
President of the Pilgrim Health
& Life Insurance Co., to David
Duncan, Assistant to the
President of Paine College.
Looking on is Ed Mclntyre of
Pilgrim and also campaign
chairman of the Paine College
“Build It Back” Campaign
Fund.
Among the speakers
addressing the publishers were
Rep. Louis Stokes (Dem.-Ohio)
Chairman of the Congressional
Black Caucus, Clarence
Mitchell of the NAACP,
Robert Brown, former special
assistant to President Nixon
and his successor Stan Scott.
The publishers were
entertained at the Capitol
where they were hosted by
Congressman Andrew Young
and Congresswomen, Yvonne
Braithwaite Burke and Barbara
Jordan, three new Black
members of Congress.
There was a briefing at the
White House and a reception at
the State department including
Herbert Klien and HEW head
Weinburger, and attorney
General Richard Kleindienst.
The workshop was attended
by over 200 publishers.
JOINS NBNS
Millender also announced
upon his return that the
News-Review has joined the
National Black News Service.
The NBNS provides national
and international news of
special interest to Blacks,
usually not covered by other
news media.
