Soprano with a voice ‘like a thunderbolt’ became diva with a regal sense of dignity

Norman was acclaimed for a ‘‘voice as near perfection as one could hope for’’.

Jessye Norman opera singer b September 15, 1945 d September 30, 2019

Jessye Norman, who has died aged 74, ranked at the pinnacle of the operatic pantheon as an authentic soprano superstar, combining a sumptuous sound with a majestic stage presence. Hailed as a ‘‘once-in-a-generation singer’’, she had a huge voice that could fill the grandest of auditoriums with breathtaking ease, losing nothing in beauty of tone or passion of performance. ‘‘The immensity of her voice struck like a thunderbolt,’’ noted one dazzled critic. ‘‘It was like an eruption of primal power.’’

She became a sublime interpreter of most of the operatic and German lieder repertory from Purcell on, but especially of Wagner, Mahler and Richard Strauss. Hearing her sing Schubert and Brahms in 1973, the Daily Telegraph’s reviewer noted her ‘‘gift of being able to project a host of vivid, spontaneous emotional nuances in a manner which is naturally in keeping with the texts and musical settings’’.

Norman also embraced the contemporary and American repertoire, singing pop by French composer Michel Legrand, sacred music by Duke Ellington, scored for jazz combo, string quartet and piano, as well as spirituals and gospel songs she had learnt as a girl growing up in the Deep South.

By the 1970s she had also mutated into a fully fledged and larger-than-life diva, large enough in 1981 to inspire the character of the black American opera singer in Jean-Jacques Beineix’s debut film Diva. Though critics often drew attention to the way in which her warmth of personality infused performances, her regal stature and sometimes imperious behaviour also brought damaging publicity.

In 1994 Classic CD magazine reported that, when trapped in revolving doors en route to a concert and advised to free herself by turning sideways, she replied: ‘‘Honey, I ain’t got no sideways.’’ Norman complained of ridicule, contempt and racist stereotyping, and tried to sue for libel. The case was eventually dismissed.

Certainly she girded herself with an ironclad sense of dignity. But as a friend pointed out, the expression ‘‘Honey, I ain’t

. . .’’ was not in her repertoire. ‘‘She talks like the Queen nowadays,’’ the friend added.

During a two-week residency at the Barbican in London the same year, she insisted on distinctly regal measures. On her orders, the artists’ bar was shut, apparently because she could see it from her dressing room. And she insisted on the evacuation of the main conductor’s green room.

But she had now joined the ranks of American ‘‘royalty’’, and sang at the funeral of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Millions more worldwide watched her on television in March 2002 when she sang America the Beautiful at a memorial service at the site of the former World Trade Center in New York for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks the year before.

As one of the world’s great divas, Norman was acclaimed for a ‘‘voice as near perfection as one could hope for’’. Although sometimes accused of ‘‘high-camp singing with a lot of portamento’’, she could command an opera stage like no other, and few in the audience did not leave feeling emotionally drained.

The daughter of an insurance broker, Jessye Mae Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia. It was while scrubbing the kitchen floor to the accompaniment of radio broadcasts from the New York Met on Saturday afternoons that she became hooked on opera. She won a scholarship to Howard University in Washington, graduating in 1967 with a degree in music.

Although by then the last legal barriers impeding black artists in America had been dismantled, she forged her early career in Europe, making her La Scala debut in 1972. She did not perform on an American operatic stage until 1982, when she sang Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Philadelphia, and only at the Metropolitan Opera in New York when she sang Cassandra there in Berlioz’s Les Troyens in 1983.

By then she was acknowledged as one of the great exponents of her art, with a voice described as ‘‘one of the wonders of the world’’ and a majestic bearing that shimmered in the beam of the personal spotlight on which she always insisted.

Among the many events at which she performed, she sang at the 1985 and 1997 American presidential inaugurations, the Queen’s 60th birthday celebrations in London in 1986, and three years later at the bicentennial of the French Revolution, at which she sang La Marseillaise.

In 1997 she received the United States’ highest award in the performing arts, the Kennedy Center Honor: she was the youngest recipient in its 20-year history. Other distinctions included honorary doctorates at some 30 colleges, universities and conservatories. In 1989 she was appointed to France’s Legion d’honneur.

In 2006 she was awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement. She was also a life member of the Girl Scouts of America.

She was unmarried.