ON THE BEAT.(singer Jessye Norman files, but dones not win, a breach of contract suit against Trans World Airlines)(this and other items are discussed)

TWA grounds Norman; Daniels speaks up for countertenors; Jennings sings Violetta in Connecticut; Drattell takes on Nicholas and Alexandra; Silja crosses the Brooklyn Bridge

JESSYE NORMAN's New York fans have been bereft in recent seasons, because her Met appearances have become so sporadic; she hasn't been back since her galvanizing performance in The Makropulos Case in 1996. But the soprano has made her presence known offstage, notably in a clash with Trans World Airlines that recently went to court, somehow receiving remarkably little publicity.

In June 1998, Norman purchased two first-class tickets for a TWA flight from New York to St. Louis, with a stopover in Cleveland. Distressed because she had missed an earlier direct flight to St. Louis, Norman tried to use her skyphone to call ahead to St. Louis, to let her contacts know she would be arriving later than expected -- and discovered that the phone didn't work. Norman then asked flight attendant LEROY WISDOM to request the cockpit crew to radio ahead on her behalf, explaining her predicament. Wisdom explained that airline policy precluded such use of the cockpit radio, but that he would have a word with the captain. Five minutes later, Norman repeated her request. An argument began to build, which culminated in Wisdom leaning over Norman's seat, suggesting that she take a Greyhound bus from Cleveland to St. Louis. Allegedly, Norman then called Wisdom a "fool" and suggested, "You'd better stop before you lose your job."

Things got even nastier. For the second leg of the flight, from Cleveland to St. Louis, Wisdom refused to continue as long as Norman was on the plane. The captain, anxious to maintain departure time in the face of shaky weather conditions, tried to mediate, along with several other TWA employees. Eventually, Norman met with Wisdom on the jetway and offered an apology, which Wisdom refused to accept because apparently he didn't think she sounded as if she meant it. The weather grew worse, and the captain grew more nervous as the minutes ticked by. Since FAA regulations prevent flights from departing without a full crew, the captain decided to back Wisdom and requested that Norman deplane, which she did, peaceably.

Norman went ahead to St. Louis on a Southwest Airlines flight that evening. The following day, she gave a performance in St. Louis that was highly acclaimed. But, still smarting from the experience, she filed a lawsuit, alleging breach of contract against TWA and gross negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. (She claimed that Wisdom's manner was "menacing.") The case was subsequently dismissed in U.S. District Court, Judge BARBARA S. JONES presiding. Regulations stipulate that an airline may refuse to transport a passenger judged to pose a threat to the flight's safety, and that "such a refusal cannot give rise to a claim for damages ... unless the carrier's decision was arbitrary and capricious." Also working against the soprano was the lack of any medical evidence of her distress. Norman did get the cost of her ticket refunded. But I imagine that in the future she'll find Delta or American more to her liking.

Only a few years ago, a genuine star countertenor would have been unheard of -- but that was before the breakthrough of DAVID DANIELS. Daniels may spend much of his time rooted in music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but in person, he's as hip and funny as can be. Talk to him for a few minutes, and you start to think he wouldn't be at all out of place guesting on an episode of Friends. This month, he's appearing at Los Angeles Opera in the title role of Giulio Cesare. We spoke recently, between performances of Rinaldo at New York City Opera. Right away, I apologized for what probably sounded like a stupid question, but it was one that I've always wondered about: do singers who perform lots of Handel operas ever get all of those A-B-A arias confused and start mixing up the vocal lines? "Oh, that never happens," Daniels assures me. "Maybe when I add more roles, it might.... Thanks a lot for bringing it up, though. Now I'm going to be completely and utterly paranoid about it. It'll give me something to talk to my shrink about."

In November, Daniels had a huge success with NYCO's Rinaldo -- the run was completely sold out. His new Decca recording of the opera (reviewed on p. 70) has gotten a lot of attention. It's pretty spectacular, all right, although it does have one big black spot: CECILIA BARTOLI's ravishing performance of "Augelletti che cantate" is spoiled by an eruption of cheap-sounding bird calls. Having heard Bartoli's splendid performance of it at Paris's Theatre des Champs Elysees in 1999, senza bird calls, I was stunned that she permitted Decca to commit this kind of sabotage. "Well, she okayed it," says Daniels. "Trust me. There's nothing on it that she didn't okay. It was CHRIS HOGWOOD's idea to use them. In the original [back in 1711], they let live birds go in the theater, so that's where he got the idea."