Last night the main stage of the Four Seasons Centre was the setting for celebrating the award of the twelth Glenn Gould prize to the great Jessye Norman. There were speeches, of course, celebrating Ms. Norman’s life as a singer rising to the top of the profession from unpromising origins as well as her lifetime of educational and philanthropic endeavours. They were decently short and to the point allowing us to get onto to the music, though not before we had heard Ms. Norman’s heartfelt and very touching acceptance speech.
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Jessye Norman week!
Jessye Norman is this year’s winner of the Glenn Gould prize. I knew that a while ago but I had no idea of the scale of events being arranged to honour the fact. TL;DR there are tons. So, I’m going to do what I almost never do, which is to reproduce the press release with the event schedule verbatim. Here goes: Continue reading
Kathleen Battle steals the show again
In this next episode of our wallow in Met nostalgia we are looking at the 1988 production of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. It’s a starry affair with James Levine conducting, Jessye Norman in the title role, James King as Bacchus, Kathleen Battle as Zerbinetta and Tatiana Troyanos as the Komponist. There’s even a bit of luxury casting in the minor roles with Barbara Bonney and Dawn Upshaw among the nymphs. It’s also as old fashioned as one could possibly imagine, being a revival of a production that premiered in 1962. Continue reading