Norman Slips Benefit Into Busy Schedule : Music: The soprano will sing Sunday at a UC Santa Barbara recital.

Jessye Norman is having a typical early fall. One of America’s superstar sopranos, the 46-year-old singer from Georgia opened the 1991-92 season of the Utah Symphony in Salt Lake City on Thursday night.

Next Wednesday, she performs in Louise M. Davies Hall for the San Francisco Symphony. The following week, on Oct. 10, she inaugurates the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s winter concerts in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

But Sunday afternoon in the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara, between rehearsals for her San Francisco concerts, Norman will give an atypical recital--a benefit for the UC Santa Barbara Summer Vocal Institute.

It all happened because of a casual remark made by the founder of the four-year old institute, Norman’s friend and former voice teacher, Elizabeth Mannion.

“After the ‘Gurrelieder’ performance (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) in 1990, Jessye and I were having dinner,” Mannion recalled, on the phone from Santa Barbara.

“I said, ‘I’m so tired of trying to raise money for this Institute. I think I’ll just go back to (her hometown) Seattle and raise goats.

“Jessye was very firm. She said, ‘No, Mrs. Mannion. Let me help you.’ ”

Thus the renowned soprano, whose normal fee is in excess of $45,000, is appearing without charge.

Raising money for scholarships has turned out to be the largest job of running the Institute, Mannion says: “It costs about $1,500 apiece to give the students this training for these six weeks, not including housing.”

Soprano Norman first studied with Mannion at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1966, Mannion recalled.

“Later, we went to (the National Music Camp at) Interlochen together. Then, she followed me to (the University of) Indiana when I taught there, though she never enrolled at the school. That was just before she went to Europe (in 1968).”

In recent years, the two singers--at 63, Mannion remains an active mezzo-soprano--have traveled together. Mannion went with Norman to the Soviet Union in 1990 . They have also toured Europe together.

Career guidance and historical perspective are two elements often left out of the spotty vocal training American singers receive today, Mannion asserts.

To fill in these and other gaps, she founded the UCSB Summer Vocal Institute in 1987. It is a six-week program offering career-bent young singers instruction in movement, language, staging and voice, as well as coaching in song repertory and operatic literature. Eventually, Mannion says, “We would like to see it become an international center--a safe place to come for those embarking on a career.”