A commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, Norman was associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Berlioz's Cassandre and Didon, and Bartók's Judith.

The New York Times music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward.

Her career began in Europe, where she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1968, which led to a contract with the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Norman sang and recorded recitals of music by Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Ernest Chausson and Francis Poulenc, among others.

[4] Norman attended Charles T. Walker Elementary School, and proved to be a talented singer as a young child, singing gospel songs at Mount Calvary Baptist Church at the age of four.

[4][7] She received her first formal vocal coaching from Rosa Harris Sanders Creque, who was her music teacher at A. R. Johnson Junior High School.

[8] She continued to take voice lessons privately with Ms. Sanders Creque while attending Lucy C. Laney Senior High School in downtown Augusta.

[4][7] Norman performed as a guest with German and Italian opera companies, often portraying noble characters convincingly, both by appearance and by unique voice which was both flexible and powerful.

[7] The same year, she portrayed Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, alongside Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the count[7] at the Berlin Festival, and recorded the role with the BBC Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis.

Norman toured Europe throughout the 1970s, giving recitals of works by Schubert, Mahler, Wagner, Brahms, Satie, Messiaen, and several contemporary American composers, to great critical acclaim.

[18] In October 1980, Norman returned to the operatic stage in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss at the Hamburg State Opera in Germany.

[20] Her stage debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was on September 26, 1983, the opening night of the company's 100th-anniversary season, when she portrayed Cassandre in Berlioz's Les Troyens with Plácido Domingo as Aeneas, Tatiana Troyanos as Didon, and James Levine conducting.

[36] She commissioned the song cycle woman.life.song by composer Judith Weir, a work premiered at Carnegie Hall, with texts by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

[37] In a review of a recital at Alice Tully Hall, Bernard Holland wrote in The New York Times that she "carefully gauged her seemingly limitless resources to fit the changing textures of her material".

[38] After a recital at Carnegie Hall, Allen Hughes wrote in the same paper that Norman "has one of the most opulent voices before the public today, and, as discriminating listeners are aware, her performances are backed by extraordinary preparation, both musical and otherwise.

"[18] She told John Gruen in an interview: "As for my voice, it cannot be categorized – and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range.

"[40] She was invited to sing at the second inauguration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan on January 21, 1985; she performed "Simple Gifts" from Aaron Copland's Old American Songs at the ceremony.

In 1988, she sang a concert performance of Poulenc's one-act opera La voix humaine ("The Human Voice"), based on Jean Cocteau's 1930 play of the same name.

Her interpretation of the Four Last Songs is especially acclaimed, as "the tonal qualities of her voice were ideal for these final works of the great Romantic German lieder tradition".

[53] This event was the inspiration that led the South African poet Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu to write a poem titled "I Shall Be Heard" dedicated to Norman.

[54] From the early 1990s, Norman lived in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, in a secluded estate known as "The White Gates", which was previously owned by television personality Allen Funt.

[56] Norman sang Jocasta in Stravinsky's Oedipus rex at the opening operatic production at the new Saito Kinen Festival in the Japanese Alps near Matsumoto in 1992.

[61] In 1998, she performed a recital at Carnegie Hall incorporating sacred music by Duke Ellington, scored for jazz combo, string quartet and piano.

The recording, reviewed as a jazz crossover project, featured Legrand on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Grady Tate on drums.

With James Levine as her pianist, the concerts were a significant arts event, replete with an 80-page program booklet featuring a newly commissioned watercolor portrait of Norman by David Hockney.

[66] On March 11, 2002, Norman performed "America the Beautiful" at a service unveiling two monumental columns of light at the site of the former World Trade Center, as a memorial for the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City.

In November 2004, a documentary about Norman's life and work was directed by André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer [de] as director of photography, documenting her music as well as political and social issues.

The festival honored African-American trailblazers and artists with concerts, recitals, lectures, panel discussions, and exhibitions hosted by Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and other sites around New York City.

In 2015, she and pianist Mark Markham presented a program of mainly Gershwin, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart at Carnegie Hall with a few art songs by Satie and Poulenc.

Actor Laurence Fishburne, sociologist Michael Eric Dyson, Carnegie Hall's Clive Gillinson, civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, and Mayor Hardie Davis spoke.