2007 Artists in Residence

2007 Harman-Eisner Artists in Residence
Jessye Norman · Stephen Wadsworth

Jessye Norman is one of the most celebrated contemporary opera singers and recitalists in the world. Her repertoire ranges from opera to jazz, spirituals to leider. She made her operatic debut in Berlin and has performed on stages from Lincoln Center to Covent Garden, Carnegie Hall to La Scala. The Jessye Norman School for the Arts was opened in Norman’s hometown of Augusta, GA, and she is actively involved in its activities. A tuition-free arts-education program for talented middle-school students otherwise unable to afford private arts tutoring, the school is Miss Norman’s response to understanding the opportunities experience with the arts provides for all facets of life. Miss Norman is an honorary ambassador to the United Nations, a Kennedy Center Honoree, a National Medal of the Arts awardee, a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and a member of France’s Legion D’Honneur, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award, and over forty honorary doctorates.

Stephen Wadsworth is a James S. Marcus Faculty Fellow and the Director of Opera Studies at Juilliard. As a director, he divides his time between opera and spoken theater. His work within the classical repertoire includes The Oresteia, Wagner’s Ring cycle, Shakespeare, Moliere, Handel, Mozart, Shaw, Wilde, and Coward. He has also directed plays by Juan Guare, Beth Henley, Anna Deavere Smith, and Terrence McNally. He has translated Moliere’s Don Juan, as well as works by Monteverdi and Goldoni. His productions of Rodelinda, Boris Godunov, and Iphigenie en Tauride are in the repertoire of the Metropolitan Opera. Wadsworth has been named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government and was in 2013 a Fellow at the Sundance Institute Playwrights Retreat at Ucross. At Juilliard, he started the world’s first and only intensive acting program for singers and has taught in the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program for over thirty years.