Another historic concert this week. Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in this broadcast from October 24, 1978 featuring guest conductor Antal Dorati and Soprano Jessye Norman in music of Haydn, Wagner, Ravel and Beethoven.
Starting with Haydn’s Symphony Number 96 and the orchestra is joined by Jessye Norman for a performance of Wagner’s Wesendonk Lieder arranges for Soprano and Orchestra. It’s followed by Ravel’s Schéhérazade and concluding with Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5.
Jessye Norman, described as a “force of nature” by admiring critics, was among the most celebrated sopranos of the late twentieth century. Norman’s uncommon range and commanding presence earned her a devoted following and numerous awards, including the Kennedy Center Honor and the National Medal of Arts.
Jessye Norman was born in Augusta on September 15, 1945, to Janie King and Silas Norman. Her mother, a homemaker and teacher, played piano, and her father, an insurance broker, was a soloist at their church, Mount Calvary Baptist. As a child Norman sang at various civic events and with church and school choirs. She listened to radio broadcasts of New York’s Metropolitan Opera and to recordings of the classical artists Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, whom she regarded as role models, as well as to jazz vocalists Dinah Washington and Billie Holliday. At sixteen she won a full scholarship to Howard University in Washington, D.C., and later graduated cum laude. She continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, and at the University of Michigan.
In 1968 Norman won the female vocal division of the International Music Competition of the German Broadcasting Corporation in Munich, Germany, and she made her operatic debut in 1969 as Elisabeth in Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Three years later she made her La Scala debut, in Milan, Italy, in a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida and her British debut at London’s Royal Opera House as Cassandre in Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens.
But it was not until 1983 that she finally performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera. During the intervening years she had stepped away from grand opera to focus on recordings and concerts, giving her voice the opportunity to develop outside the demands of an extensive opera repertory. When she finally took the stage at the Met—during the venue’s centennial season—Norman delivered a bravura performance, singing Cassandre and Dido in Les Troyens in a production that captivated audiences and charmed critics. She would sing more than eighty performances at the Met in the years that followed.
Norman’s renown meant that she was often invited to perform at public ceremonies, both in the United States and abroad. She sang at inaugurals for presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton; performed for Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday; and sang “La Marseillaise” in Paris, France, for the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Other official engagements have included singing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and taking part in the ceremonies honoring former president Jimmy Carter when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Few performers have been so highly decorated. Norman received more than thirty honorary degrees from universities throughout the country, was awarded the Legion of Honor from the French government, and became the youngest recipient of the Kennedy Center Honor at the age of just fifty-one. She received four Grammy awards for her recordings and a fifth for lifetime achievement.
Jessye Norman died in 2019 at the age of seventy-four.
Antal Doráti was born in Budapest to a Jewish family. His father Alexander Doráti was a violinist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother Margit Kunwald was a piano teacher.
He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leó Weiner for composition and Béla Bartók for piano. His links with Bartók continued for many years: he conducted the world premiere of Bartók’s Viola Concerto, as completed by Tibor Serly, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1949, with William Primrose as the soloist.
He made his conducting debut in 1924 with the Budapest Royal Opera.
As well as composing original works, he compiled and arranged pieces by Johann Strauss II for the ballet Graduation Ball (1940), premiered by the Original Ballet Russe in Sydney, Australia, with himself on the conductor’s podium. For Ballet Theatre (later renamed American Ballet Theatre) he created scores for the ballets Bluebeard (1941) from music by Jacques Offenbach and The Fair at Sorochinsk (1943) from music by Modest Mussorgsky.
In 1983, Antal Doráti was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).
His wife was Ilse von Alpenheim, an Austrian pianist. Doráti died at the age of 82 in Gerzensee, Switzerland.
Enjoy the concert.
