THE TEN GREATEST SOPRANOS HEARD LIVE 10 Jessye Norman

This is a selection of videos of the Ten Greatest Sopranos I had the joy to hear in live performance. The order is simply when I first heard them. They are all from my impressionable student days, chosen because every one of these great singers gave performances as vivid to me now as when I first heard them. Every one was more than just a voice and they all sang, in their very different ways, so as to move, excite and enchant. Jessye Norman was just beginning her international career when she was invited to sing Cassandra in The Trojans at Covent Garden in 1972. I heard her many times in rehearsal as she prepared the role. Immediately her huge, majestic voice reminded me more than anyone else I heard, of Kirsten Flagstad. Here was a very big star indeed. What I found so attractive was that, apart from the sheer glory of the tone, there was an eagerness and enthusiasm about her singing as well as a delicious, self deprecating mockery offstage. As is well documented, she has become a thrilling, powerful and sensitive interpreter and I am so glad to have heard her at the start of her world wide success. "Les Troyens", Berlioz huge masterpiece in five Acts, is comprised of two operas, "The Siege of Troy" and "The Trojans in Carthage". In this scene, which is the conclusion of the first opera, the city of Troy is about to fall into the hands of the besieging Greek army. The prophetess Cassandra encourages the women of Troy to take their own lives, rather than submit to their conquerors.