On Friday 21 November, the Metropolitan Opera Guild's 80th Annual Luncheon presents Brava, Jessye! to salute Jessye Norman, who recently wrote about her life in a memoir titled Stand Up Straight and Sing!
A perennial highlight of the opera season, the Luncheon will bring together a host of artists and other luminaries to honour the sumptuous-voiced soprano and her long and celebrated career, including The Honorable Mario Cuomo, Julie Taymor, Maestro Kurt Masur, Arthur Mitchell and Deborah Voigt, in addition to opera fans and an array of New York's society, business, and civic leaders. Brava, Jessye! will be highlighted by a spoken tribute from Toni Morrison, the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose work Norman has unceasingly championed. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Guild's education programs in New York City and throughout the country.
This will be the Guild's 80th Annual Luncheon. Since the time of our first Luncheon we have honored many extraordinary Met artists, from Bruno Walter, Marjorie Lawrence, Renata Tebaldi and Birgit Nilsson to Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo. The remarkable Jessye Norman is very much part of this grand tradition, and we are delighted to have this opportunity to salute her and celebrate her contributions to the world of opera.
said Guild President Richard J. Miller, Jr.
Among the myriad distinguished artists who are already slated to help celebrate Norman on 21 November Lucine Amara, Marco Armiliato, Martina Arroyo, Harolyn Blackwell, Olga Borodina, Lawrence Brownlee, Tyne Daly, Rosalind Elias, Marcello Giordani, Christine Goerke, Hei-Kyung Hong, Bill T. Jones, Isola Jones, Richard Leech, Isabel Leonard, Catherine Malfitano, Kurt Masur, Angela Meade, Fabrizio Melano, Arthur Mitchell, Latonia Moore, James Morris, Eric Owens, Hanna Schwarz, Anna Deavere Smith, Edward Villella, Deborah Voigt and Rufus Wainwright.
Jessye Norman said,
I am absolutely delighted to find myself to be the honored guest at this year's Luncheon. I look forward to all of the festivities with great pleasure.
80th ANNUAL METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD LUNCHEON
Brava, Jessye!
Friday, November 21 at 12:15pm
Grand Ballroom, Waldorf-Astoria, NYC
For tickets, call 212-769-7009, or visit www.metguild.org.
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Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
