Jessye Norman

Describing the sheer vocal power of a Norman recital, Fiona Maddocks of "The Independent" heaped on lavish praise. "A pattern can be detected in most Jessye Norman concerts," Maddocks wrote. "In the first half, with her voice still warming up, pleasure is tempered with a slight anxiety that perhaps she will not prove as exciting as you thought. In the second, some strange alchemy occurs, not simply explained by the fact that the program is structured to reach a climax, as any solo recital would. By the end, quite apart from any emotional uplift, you leave with a sense of having been physiscally overwhelmed."

Norman herself has described her singing as an out-of-body experience.

"When you're singing well, it's unlike anything you can think of," she told the paper. "The breath is flowing as it should, it’s as though you're connected to something other than yourself. Athletes talk about it: a second wind or something, when you're running on energy you didn’t know you had. You get a high, with all this energy flowing through your body. When singing gets to that point, it’s marvellous."

A French devotee

It's that free-flowing soprano voltage that electrifies her fans, too. None have swooned over the singer more than Alain, the obsessed French fan who would travel by third-class rail across Europe to see her perform. So devoted an admirer was the Paris messenger that the filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix loosely based the 1981 sleeper film "Diva" on his life. But instead of seeing him as a stalker, as some celebrities might, Norman embraced his support -- forming a deep, platonic performer-fan relationship. She once even described Alain as an "important figure in her life."

"He was one of those people you thought about on a concert day when you were not sure how you were going to be able to get out of bed, much less perform, you were feeling too unwell," Norman told the Associated Press in a tribute, shortly after his death. "But you thought: 'Alain is going to be there, so I’m going to make an effort.'"

A people's performer

But Norman isn’t just there for the guests who can fork out $100 or more for a seat at the Met. Nor is Norman someone only willing to strike a note for the $50,000 a performance she is rumored to make. Throughout her career, she has made a point of not becoming trapped in the golden cage of the world of high culture elites.

She is a dogged champion of public television broadcasts of opera, which bring high art to the masses. "I don't have many things I would offer as a compliment that has to do with television," she once told "The New York Times". "But I have to say that television has been wonderful for opera because it has allowed people to see opera on their own terms -- at home and to see the words written along the screen. So they can see that the story is not that complicated and the music is wonferful. It's really expanded the audience a great deal."

When she's not performing at the Met or La Scala or on the television sets of hundreds of thousands, Norman can be found on the public stage. When the French sought a singer to perform "La Marseillaise" at the country's bicentennial celebration in Paris, they didn’t turn to one of their own to do the honors -- they asked Norman. She also returned to Atlanta in 1996 to open the Olympic Games. A year later, she performed at Bill Clinton’s second presidential inauguration. And when the Kennedy Family needed a singer to help memorialize Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at her funeral, they asked Jessye.

Indeed, the "face of tragedy" has transformed herself into the healer of tragedies. Six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Norman offered New York and the rest of the U.S. courage with her rendition of "America the Beautiful" at the unveiling of a temporary memorial where the World Trade Center once stood.

When not helping the world cope with tragedy or celebrate its triumphs, Norman has also spent considerable time in the studio. Most of her nearly 70 albums have been recorded on the Philips label. She has won a Grammy Award, a German Phono Award and London’s prestigiouos Gramophone Award, among other honors.

In recent years, Norman has musically branched out beyond opera, performing the sacred music of jazz great Duke Ellington and recording a jazz album with French composer Michel Legrand. The work demonstrated Norman’s agility as a singer, and critics lapped it up. "She doesn’t really swing, and the music is more high-class slushy cabaret chanson than jazz as such, but it’s a fine album all the same, and a perfect high-camp soundtrack," a critic for "The Independent" wrote.

Though trained as a classical singer, Norman has said she was always a fan of jazz. "I think I have grown into it. I'm really happy to do it and I’m going to do more of it," she said in an interview.

For her contributions to music, Norman has received the greatest of honors. She has received more than 30 honorary doctoral degrees from universities around the world, and the French bestowed upon her the Legion of Honor and named an orchid after her. She has served as an honorary ambassador for the United Nations, and has been the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, the highest cultural award given in the United States.

A first-class Girl Scout

She is also a tireless helper and fundraiser for charities -- especially the Girl Scouts and groups working with children who have AIDS. So much so, in fact, that nowadays she refers to singing as her "night job." Several years back, she was named an honorary lifetime member of the Girl Scouts troop at the American Embassy in Paris. Ever since, she has been a tireless cookie saleswoman for the group –- peddling Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwich and Shortbread cookies from the back of her chauffeured car. During a good year, Norman and her staff are said to move as many as 2,000 boxes.

"I get the chipmunk and the stuffed bear and the patch and everything –- just like the 10-year-olds," Norman recently told an interviewer. "I'll sell cookies to anybody, anywhere -- on the street, from the back of my car, you name it."

Outside of her charity work for groups like the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Partnership for the Homeless or the Lupus Foundation, among others, Norman has another life passion. Before going to Howard University to study music, she considered becoming a doctor instead. The interest persists today, and she often reads issues of the Journal of the American Medical Association between performances.

"I'm sure I dispense as much medical advice to my friends as most people who get paid for it," she has said.

Daryl Lindsey