Diva extraordinaire Norman sweats the details
The art of singing is not just about the big picture. It’s the art of attending to the tiniest little details so that the audience can admire the results.
That was the lesson Jessye Norman, the great American opera diva of the late 20th century, brought to a standing-room-only crowd at the University of Toronto’s Walter Hall on Friday afternoon.
Norman, now retired and using a motorized wheelchair, may be diminished physically, but her art is alive and well. Toronto is getting more than a week to celebrate Norman’s career as a singer as well as a mentor. There have been public events nearly every day leading up to a big gala concert at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on Wednesday.
Norman won’t be singing, but a stage full of the finest musicians from Canada and many other parts of the world will perform on her behalf as she accepts the $100,000 Glenn Gould Prize alongside her designated protégé, jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, who will get a cheque for $15,000.
It’s all very grand — and surely well
deserved. But Norman’s honour is built, like her singing was, on the accumulation of little details of mentoring and philanthropy. And her work in this regard will likely continue well past the big award night at the opera house.
So back to Walter Hall and the threehour master class for six of the brightest young singers in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.
There was a queue of well over 100 people, many of whom had been standing in wait since the morning, who did not make it into the hall. Instead, they were offered seats in a separate room equipped with video screens.
There was disappointment in the air and I wonder if there wasn’t also some disappointment with the master class itself. I think we were all hoping to be reminded of the greatness of Norman’s art when she was at her peak.
Some artists do manage that, even if they don’t perform anymore. Opportunities to hear a seasoned professional share their insights with students are a regular feature at all music schools and conservatories, including the U of T. Most provide fascinating windows into the combination of nitty gritty — the hard work of practising — and the layers of history, tradition and culture that make up the performing arts.
Norman had, however, been working with the singers behind the scenes before the master class. Whatever happened behind closed doors was private. But what we saw in public was Norman micromanaging each song and each opera aria, down to telling one of the pianists how much he should lift his fingers from the keyboard between each chord.
The singers were drilled on the shape of a particular vowel. It was all detail work, painstakingly directed by Norman and repeated by the singer. There was no talk about craft, art and expression, or mention of any of the thousands of little anecdotes about past performances or the composer’s life that animate the bulk of regular master classes.
In her own performances, Norman never left any detail unattended. And she certainly didn’t spare the students on Friday. But were they learning by imitation or were they actually acquiring deeper insights about the art of song?
That is a mystery. But we do know that, for the next Glenn Gould Prize winner, nothing matters more than sweating the details.
Classical music writer John Terauds is a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnTerauds