About Women
Jessye Norman in Conversation with Anna Deavere Smith
American actress, playwright, and professor Anna Deavere Smith moderates a conversation with opera singer Jessye Norman. This program was organized to fulfill the 1996 Goldberg lecture in memory of Monica Denise Goldberg. Norman shares how she became interested in opera and her desire to always learn new music and improve her craft. She discusses how she independently prepares and structures her own recitals as a way of taking responsibility for her work and her relationship with the audience. Norman also reflects on the influence of Marian Anderson, an African American contralto, on her own experience as an African American opera singer and recitalist. She, for example, presses her own performance dresses as a tribute to Anderson, who was forced to press her own dress in an alleyway after a hotel would not help her because of her race. The discussion is followed with questions from the audience.
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