Jessye Norman - Opera singer HARDtalk

prompted the Tory MP Brooks Newmark to resign. Now on BBC News,

HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. My guest today

audiences in the world's greatest audiences in the world's greatest

concert halls and opera houses for decades. Jessye Norman is

acknowledged as one of the greatest singers of her generation. She has

now written a reflective memoir. Stand up straight and sing, about

her life in music. She was born in America's segregated South, with a

talent that transcended barriers. But has her success helped to tear

those barriers down. Jessye Norman, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you very much, delighted to be here. The briefest way of putting it

is that yours is a life that began in the segregated South of the US

during a time of extraordinary troubles, and took you all the way

to the most gilded opera houses in the world. Through all of that

journey, did you feel that you were defying the odds? Certainly defying

the odds, but also very fortunate, and very lucky in so many ways. I

know that from hearing educators talk about arts and education that

arts education was a part of my public school education in the US.

So, we had choirs and bands and art clubs and the rest of it, and it was

available for every child. You, after all, were an African`American

child, in a small town in Georgia, Augusta, Georgia, and the prevailing

feeling in the South, which was ruled by white people, was that

black people should know their place. And their place, frankly, was

not in the concert hall or the Opera House. Yes, but that was not my

thought, or the thought of my parents, or the other people who

were nurturing me. Whether they were my family members or people from my

community or my church. When I was able to see the wonderful film of

Marian Anderson about aged ten or 11, the woman who was called the

Lady from Philadelphia, standing there in all of Her Majesty and her

grace, African`American, looking very much like me. A woman who had

the most marvellous voice but was not allowed to perform in them best

opera houses. Not until 1955, you are right. But she was performing

everywhere else, she was performing for the monarchs of Europe. And

Victoria, not just listening to her Victoria, not just listening to her

sing, but also understanding her as a person. That was something that

was very inspirational to me. You are also quite a political person.

You were a member of the NAACP, you went on marches, you were involved

in sit`ins. Absolutely. So in a way it is odd that you ended up going

into an art form that is perhaps the least contemporary, the least

contemporary to what was unfolding in America at the time. Precisely.

It is important to understand that arts education, having a music

teacher, at age five or six, that tells you about the great violinists

of the world, the great orchestras of the world, and plays this music

for you to hear. This gives you space to dream, whereas you might,

as I certainly was, living in the segregated South where you were

certainly living in an oppressive situation, the oppression was not in

my mind. It was not in my spirit. It was something that was happening

outside me. And my parents were involved in the civil rights

movement, as was my older brother, who was the

chapter of the NAACP, while he was in college in Augusta, Georgia. But

my thoughts about what my life could be were certainly not limited to the

circumstances of my life. I wonder, when you went into those restaurants

which were segregated, and you and your friends made a point of sitting

in places you shouldn't be sitting, did you ever come close to hating

white people and the white power that oppressed you? No, because I am

still, even at this ripe age, I am still that five`year`old in the

train station with my parents, on my way from Augusta to Philadelphia, to

visit relatives and friends, and going over to the white section of

the train station sitting area, and saying to my mother, nothing happens

when I sit over here. I always thought segregation was stupid and

foolish and useless. And even at the age five I thought that. And a few

years later, after age five, I had the same idea about it. A final

point about this youth you had, we are talking about the 50s and 60s,

There was an evolution from jazz to Blues to rock 'n' roll. Of course.

You were a very musical young woman. Were you in a way drawn to them,

because then you could have expressed your politics much more

easily than it would in opera? I'm not sure that is true, because I

think one has to understand one's own gifts. And I understood from

listening to my contemporaries, and listening to people who were

professional in these genres, that I did not possess the gospel singing

kind of voice, and I wasn't particularly interested in singing

pop music. The songs I sang I learned at school or church, I

learned sitting next to my mother at the piano in our house. So, this

wasn't pop music that I was learning. Therefore, that is not

what I was singing. In another circumstance, perhaps with different

parents or in a different situation, I might have been drawn to a

different genre of music, but as it was I spent my Saturday afternoons

listening to the Metropolitan Opera on the radio on Saturday, not having

any idea that it was something that I should not understand or that it

was something that was too complicated for me to understand. It

wasn't hard at all. There was this wonderful announcer, Milton Cross,

who told you what everything looked like, what everyone was wearing,

that Joan Sutherland was very tall and wearing a beautiful blonde wig.

He told us what was happening in the story, so as far as I was concerned,

opera was simply grown`up versions of children's stories. When you get

you going to the training, and you went to the... Howard University in

Washington, DC. The conservatory, and then Michigan. To learn the

technicalities of singing opera is quite something. But I just wonder

whether you, looking back on it, can you say that you always had this

extraordinary range? This amazing voice, or was it trained into you?

It is certainly, I think, a combination of things. As a young

child I could always sing very loudly, I remember being about seven

years old and invited by my second grade teacher to sing for the weekly

gathering of all of the 1200 students in the school. She said, we

will have you singing by yourself, because we won't need to move the

microphone up and down. You can sing without the microphone, so the

principle could keep the microphone at his height. `` principal. And I

took it as a compliment. I was not at all embarrassed, or thought that

I sang too loudly. So I always had a voice of a certain strength and

volume, and that was something I could do very easily. You also have

the range. You can go from the highest of high, to, I think for

many female singers, extraordinarily low. At the same time, as a child in

the choir at the school, I sang whatever part was missing. So if we

didn't have very strong sopranos, at age seven or eight, then I would

sing with the sopranos. There is an age at around ten or 11, where you

practically had to bribe the boys to stay in the choir. So we didn't have

a lot of tenors. So I would sing with the tenors. Then there came a

time, around 13 or 14, when there were truly no boys left in the

choir, and I would sing with the basses. So without knowing it, and

without thinking about it in that way, I was training my voice to sing

in these different registers without really thinking about it. Now is a

good chance to give us a little flavour of this extraordinary voice.

This is contemporary, but let's hear this voice in full flow. Doing

Wagner. How do you manage to get inside the

parts and the meaning, in so many different languages? I am able to

get inside the parts and their meanings, the nuance of the language

of the music, because I don't sing in a language that I do not speak.

All of these languages you have become fluent in? Fluent more so in

some than others, but I don't sing in a language that I have not

studied as a language, because I understand that singers, as I write

in my book, we have another level of responsibility. We have words. And

those words should be understood. It should be possible for the audience

to sit and listen to us singing in Italian or French or German, and

without knowing the text, they should be able to gather what is

happening in that particular piece. To what extent in a performance like

that is it about the physicality of the acting, the performance, as well

as the purity and quality of the voice? It is important, all of it is

important. One can't just stand there like a bump on a log and sing.

That can be very beautiful from some people, but the rest of us need to

be able to act as well. That is what engages the audience, when they know

that you are is committed to what you are singing, as committed to

portraying that character as you are to delivering your gift, your voice.

To women, when it comes to opera in particular, do they get judged in a

way that men do not? Of course! I have heard countless stories, very

recently, about designing address for performance, without having seen

the person who is going to sing the performance. Therefore, choosing

rather to have someone who is going to fit into the costume, rather than

someone who will be able to sing the role. That is something that is so

misguided. Do You mean casting directors are

prioritising the look and the appearance, rather than the voice?

Often. I'm not saying in every case, thankfully, but it happens enough to

get in the papers. Talking of the newspapers, there was a furore

recently when a young and talented female Irish opera singer was

criticised for her performance in Der Rosenkavalier, on the basis of `

it was that, and these are quotes from some of the newspapers, she was

a chubby bundle of puppy fat. She was stocky, she physically didn't

work on the role. What do you mean that she didn't work on the role? Do

you mean she didn't look good in a dress? Which could have been

designed for her, and could have been made to look good. Anybody can

look good in anything. It created a huge storm inside the opera world.

That is personal and unpleasant. Yes, I mean, one reaction from Alice

Coote, a mezzosoprano of some standing, is that if we start to

judge performance on appearance like this it will be the death of opera.

She said opera is all about the voice. You are saying something

slightly different. I am saying it is about the voice, but it is also

about suspending belief. You need to be able to look and listen and

understand the portrayal of a character, and not assume that the

person that is in that dress has to sort of look like the 16`year`old.

They might be singing Salome, or a person of a certain age that might

be singing Rosenkavalier. Who has decided that the person singing

Rosenkavalier should be wearing a small dress? Except the person

designing the costume, without seeing the person who will be

wearing a costume. Because I promise you that anybody, it doesn't matter

what the shape is, what the size is, can be designed, be given a costume

that is designed to flatter that body. And unless designers are

willing to do that, then perhaps they should work in other fields.

Yes, one of the critics who was criticised for his own criticism of

the Irish singer fought back and said this. He said opera is a visual

as well as aural experience. It is a form of theatre which is 75% about

the voice and 25% about the ability to act well. And who is he to decide

that something is 75% voice and 25% something else? Why doesn't he say

40`60%? Did the critics infuriate you throughout your career? I wonder

how you respond to critics who take a stand on something that you have

worked so hard on, that is so much an expression of your personality,

and then they feel free to write this sort of stuff? Well they might

write it, but darling, I don't read it. I don't need it. I know whether

or not I have done on stage what I intended to do that night, that

evening, that afternoon. So whatever I am able to do, I am giving all

that I am able to do on that particular night. And if it doesn't

suit somebody who is sitting there, not having paid for their ticket to

be there, and they find it not to their liking, what does it matter?

Who are they? They are not my friend, they are not from my family,

they are not people who work with me or coach me or have been in any way

influential in my life. So why should it matter what that person

says? A different aspect of the world that you chose to work in,

classical music and opera, is, some would argue, snobbery. A snobbery

about the art form being higher than other musical forms. And I don't

believe in that. I truly don't believe in that. I say so often, and

with such joy, exactly what Duke Ellington said about music years

ago, there are only two kinds of music. Good music, and music that

isn't. And some of that good music is written by Beethoven, and some of

that good music was written by George Gershwin. Let's hear you sing

a little bit of George Gershwin. OK. # It's very clear our Love is here

to stay. Not for a year, but ever and a day. The radio

telephone #. Another beautiful sound. And it brings to my mind

something you set a while ago about this mixing of genres. `` something

you said. You said pigeonholes are only interesting to pigeons. Yes,

precisely. If I push you, if you are really honest, would you say that

you actually get more pure pleasure of singing and listening to Gershwin

than a lot of the opera you do? I wouldn't be able to say that. Is

there anything in the world that is more beautiful than the second duet

of Tristan and Isolde? Is there anything more beautiful than Dido

and Aeneas? Is there anything more beautiful than Dido's Lament at the

end of Henry Purcell's opera, that lasts about an hour? I am going to

stop it, because we could probably spend ten minutes. Yes. The point is

you have played all those parts over decades, but you do love different

genres. Yes. I was wondering if there is a little part of you that,

looking at modern music and the creativity that comes out of things

like hip`hop, might just be interested in challenging yourself

one more time with a different genre? As I have not limited myself

to one genre, I have always been interested in all that is going on.

I have never tried hip`hop, I have never felt that I was quite, sort

of, the hip`hop type. But perhaps working with... But music producers

today love mixing genres, and they love sampling and playing with

music. If somebody approached you, would you consider it? I would

certainly try it, why not? I'm sure I would enjoy it. I have spoken a

lot to, as I call, the kids who sing the hip`hop music, because I know

that they need to express themselves, and there are things

that they need to say. They need to make social and political

statements, and they are able to do this through their music. You have

sung at inaugurations, you know, from Republican Ronald Reagan to the

inauguration of Democrat Bill Clinton. Are you a political person?

Absolutely. A political animal in every sense. And when we talked

about the race issue, the feel that in America today, that the country

has moved beyond race ` or is it still absolutely front`and`centre of

the black experience? `` do you feel. No, it is still

front`and`centre of the American experience. We don't really allow

ourselves in the United States to have a real honest, open

conversation, as is so needed, and not just in America but all over the

world, about racism. And it is something that we simply have to do.

It isn't something about which we can ignore, the subject matter. We

have to talk, we have to try to understand one another. We have to

understand that there are certain cultural differences. If we could

understand that we all start from the same basis, from the same seed.

Yes, I mean, that is undoubtedly true. But it doesn't mean that when

you for example look out at an orchestra during a performance you

are going to see a representation that reflects the demographic of the

city where you might happen to be. Very often. Because frankly,

wherever you are there will be many more white players than black

players. And I wonder whether you think, with your experience in the

industry, that would change? I am working to change that, and I am

working to change that with the New York Philharmonic in particular, in

New York. But we will find players who have the ability, perhaps not

having had the experience, but certainly have the ability, to

people these orchestras. But you are almost suggesting positive

dissemination. No, no, no. `` positive discrimination. I am not.

That isn't what works at all. When you are auditioning for an

orchestra, you audition behind a curtain. The person doesn't know

your sex, what you look like, that your father perhaps plays in the

orchestra as well, because that simply isn't the way that it can be

done, and be done democratically. What we have to see also happening

is that everybody who is able to be there is there, and is invited. And

that has to do with the general director, the artistic advisers, of

a particular orchestra, of an Opera House society, that this is

something that we just have to do. We can't go into the same river

expecting that we are going to get a different result. We have to widen

our expanse, and we have to widen our choice, and to make sure that we

are making certain, making certain, that everybody that could possibly

be at a level that would be required for playing in a symphony orchestra

is there auditioning to play in that symphony orchestra. And we have

discussed this in the context of race, but there is also a gender

issue. Yes. You said that you have only played and performed in front

of two female conductors. Is that really true? It is absolutely true.

It is absolute nonsense. Jane Glover, who is English, and Rachael

Worby, who is American. It is absurd, but it is true. We have to

understand that the other half of the population, women, deserve to be

treated in a much different way. Can you imagine if still the Congress in

the United States were debating whether or not women should be paid

the same amount of money as men for doing the same job? That still, in

the United States, a woman is paid, very often in a corporation, 77

cents in the dollar that a man is paid for the very same job? This of

course is a nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Well, I asked you if you

have politics in you, and you clearly do, but we have run out of

time. Have we run out of time? Yes. Gosh, I was just getting warmed up!

Thank you very much for coming on HARDtalk.

Hello. It looks as though Tuesday will turn out to be dry and bright

for many central