A Jessye Norman Evening Has the Flavor of Farewell

Next season at Carnegie Hall, Jessye Norman will "curate" a "celebration of the African-American cultural legacy." I'm not sure what "curate" means. But I will tell you this: Her recital at Carnegie Hall on Thursday night had the flavor of a farewell recital. I do not say that it was; I say that it had the flavor of one.

The great and beloved American soprano sang 22 of her favorite songs — 25, if you count the encores. These were songs of Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Berg, Messiaen, Michel Legrand, and others. Her recital had a theme. That theme was "The Five Seasons: Summer, Winter, Spring, Fall, and the Eternal Season of Love!" But, take it from me: These were 22 of her favorite songs, period.

Ms. Norman looked wonderful, absolutely wonderful, in her electric-blue dress. She has always been one of America's most beautiful women, at any weight. And she is practically slim now. Her public greeted her with adoring, rapturous applause. And she beamed and beamed.

They applauded after every song — all 22, or 25 — even though their program asked them not to. And, no matter how unfortunate the disruption of the recital's flow, Ms. Norman kept beaming.

When she opened her mouth for the first song — a Brahms lied — we immediately recognized that royal, unusual, unduplicatable voice. It is reduced, which is to say reduced in volume and in range. But it is still itself in quality.

She did some good, Norman-like singing on this recital. But you had to make a million allowances. I'll now write a couple of hard paragraphs — hard for those (or, I should say, those of us) who love Ms. Norman.

She did some very, very screwy singing in the course of this evening. Her pitch was a disaster. You sometimes had no idea what key she was singing in. And she was often very, very mannered. The more insecure the technique, the more mannered the singing, as if in compensation.

Often, Ms. Norman conducted herself with her left hand; it did no good.

Comments on a couple of specific songs? Berg's "Im Zimmer" needs simplicity, and Ms. Norman loaded it with all sorts of unnecessary tics and swoops. The rhythm of Berlioz's "Villanelle" was hopeless. Etc.

But look: Jessye is Jessye. That's all there is to it. In a way, she is beyond criticism — you simply love her and accept her, regardless.

If you know her career, you could hear her former self through her current singing. For example, when she sang Wolf's "Geh, Geliebter, geh jetzt," I remembered how she once did it. For much of the audience, this had to be a very nostalgic evening.

And she sang some of her songs quite nicely. "A Sleepin' Bee" was bluesy, casual, and cool. "Autumn Leaves" brought some impressive low humming (very low). Ms. Norman finds a way to get her points across.

Accompanying her was Mark Markham, who showed considerable skill. He adjusted to his soloist's extreme flexibility of interpretation, let us say. And his playing of the last song on the program was particularly well judged: That was Wagner's "Träume," a difficult thing for an accompanist to get right.

The encores? Ms. Norman's first was her usual: Strauss's "Zueignung," a song of gratitude, during which Ms. Norman thanks different sections of the audience as the song moves along. Then she sang the "Habanera" from Bizet's "Carmen." She did this in a most peculiar manner, but it was compelling in a way.

At this point, she had very little voice left. But we needed a spiritual, right? Instead, Ms. Norman sang an Ellington song, "Solitude." She was inward, quiet, idiosyncratic. And I feel confident of this: She would not bid farewell — farewell for good — without singing some spirituals, especially "He's Got the Whole World."

Jessye Norman is a phenomenon. She is one of the most interesting musicians of our time. She has been spectacularly uneven. When I say that she has given some of the best voice recitals I have ever heard, and some of the worst, I mean it: I say it without a drop of hyperbole. A Norman recital was always an adventure.

She has sung a great variety of music, from Haydn cantatas to the Legrand songs she favors. Nothing is beyond her. And she leaves a range and a wealth of recordings. Do you own her album of spirituals? There is magnificent medicine in those tracks.

At the end of Thursday night's recital in Carnegie Hall, her fans cheered and cheered, and hollered and hollered, and passed up one bouquet of flowers after another. In the final ovation, after the Ellington song, a young woman near me called out, "I love you, Jessye!" Yes, yes.