By HERBERT KUPFERBERG

A soprano who is named Musician of the Year obviously is a soprano of rare attributes. Musicianship as such seldom dwells in the upper reaches of the vocal scale, and it takes an extraordinary prima donna to establish herself not only as a charismatic performer but as an artist of sensitivity and refinement.

Such a prima donna is Jessye Norman who, at age thirty-six, now adds the Musician of the Year award to the accolades she has already received in her own country and abroad as one of the major personalities of the day in the spheres of both recital and opera. In two decades she has come a long way from the sixteen-year-old high school girl in Augusta, Georgia, who tried out unsuccessfully in the Marian Anderson Competition in Philadelphia and who wound up as a scholarship student at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she began to learn the vocal art.

Like many—one might say too many—young American singers, Miss Norman had to go to Europe to gain her experience and exposure—and, as it turned out, her reputation as well.

After graduating from Howard, where she studied with Carolyn Grant, she went first to Peabody Institute and then to the University of Michigan, where she worked with Pierre Bernac. She got a few minor professional engagements, but nothing of significance, so in 1968 she went to Munich, to enter the International Music Competition of the German Broadcasting Corporation. The first prize she took there ignited her career; soon she was singing throughout Germany and in 1969 made her operatic debut at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser.

“If l hadn’t gone to Europe,” Miss Norman told an interviewer back in 1973, “I’d be beating my brains out fight now in New York, working as a waitress and running around to the foundations trying to get ahead.” Whether or not the touch of bitterness was justified, it’s undeniable that this remarkable singer won her first successes far from home. However, when she returned with her European experience under her belt, the reception and the reviews she received in the U.S. were nothing short of ecstatic. First an appearance at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony, and then an Alice Tully Hall recital on January 21, 1973 established her as a soprano whose pure, lustrous voice brought a special distinction to whatever music she sang.

Ever since, Jessye Norman has been a frequent performer in the United States, appearing at summer festivals from Caramoor to the Hollywood Bowl, and singing a full measure of recitals and concerts with orchestra. In a typical season, she says, she gives up to forty performances in the U.S. and Canada, adding: “With my schedule the way it is, I don’t know how much more often I could sing here even if I actually had an apartment in New York.” Her place of residence since 1974 has been London; before that she lived in West Berlin.

One aspect of her career has been relatively unfamiliar to American audiences, and that is the operatic. Miss Norman, all suggestions to the contrary notwithstanding, does regard herself as an operatic singer, and has a substantial list of European appearances—not to mention recordings, of which the best known probably is the Countess in Colin Davis’ Le Nozze di Figaro—to prove it.

“Lots of people think that if you’re not singing Forza del destino, Aida or La Traviata you’re not singing opera,” she remarks. “Actually there are many operas I have sung.”

Her stage appearances abroad, as a matter of fact, have included Aida (both in Berlin and La Scala, each time under Claudio Abbado), along with Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, both Dido and Cassandra in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, and others. But her U.S. operatic appearances until now have been limited to concert versions, such as two Hollywood Bowl appearances with James Levine as Aida and as Elvira in Don Giovanni, as well as a much-discussed Tristan und Isolde Act II at Tanglewood last summer opposite Jon Vickers with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony.

At a time when great sopranos are far from common, it seems astonishing that a singer of the quality of Jessye Norman has never performed at the Metropolitan or for that matter at any other American opera house. Fortunately, the omissions are about to be rectified: in 1982 she is scheduled to appear with the Philadelphia Opera in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and in 1983 has been selected by Levine to participate in the Metropolitan’s centennial season opening night Les Troyens.

Perhaps the best explanation of her absence from the Met and other U.S. stages until now is her size; for Miss Norman stands around five-foot-ten and her physique is as ample as her musical gifts. But the Met stage has accommodated large women before, from Eileen Farrell to Rita Hunter, and there are many who feel that the debut of this great American singer at the greatest of American opera houses has been long overdue.

I recently asked Miss Norman two questions: what was her reaction to being named Musician of the Year, and to whom she would give the award if the choice were hers? To the first question she replied, not unexpectedly: “I was surprised and delighted and thrilled and all of that.”

To the second, perhaps recalling some of her own early experiences, she said: “I think I would give it to all of those singers aged twenty-seven to forty-five who are still struggling along, trying to make a career, and hoping that someone will notice they exist.”