Norma Procter

Mary Norma Procter was a respected Uk contralto in the years following World Battle II. She was a pupil of Roy Henderson and Alec Redshaw. Although she do sing opera (including becoming selected by Benjamin Britten to sing the name part of his The Rape of Lucretia in the 1958 Aldeburgh Event and producing her Covent Backyard debut in Gluck’s Orpheus) she was most widely known like a concert, oratorio, and recital vocalist. She experienced a wealthy, warm tone of voice that was solid and reliable, missing the pinched or squally audio that often is definitely connected with oratorio performing. Fittingly, she produced her debut performing Handel’s Messiah at Southwark Cathedral in 1958 and continued to utilize the best conductors of her period, including Bruno Walter, Leonard Bernstein, Jascha Horenstein, Rafael Kubelik, Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Pierre Boulez. She sang in and documented just about any Mahler use an alto component, like the first complete edition of Mahler’s Das klagende Lied. Others of her recordings consist of Handel’s Alcina with Joan Sutherland, many Bach cantatas, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.