In a week dominated by the news of an act of mass murder in the French Alps, it was a pleasure and a privilege to be present at an event as life-affirming as the appearance by Miss Jessye Norman at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

The great American diva, in conversation with Paul Blezard, revealed a warmth and depth of character that powerfully touched all present in the Sheldonian Theatre last Friday for the performance, of which The Oxford Times was proud to be a sponsor.

In an admirable format, the talk was linked by pieces of music of personal significance to the singer. These were performed by the Orchestra of St John’s conducted by John Lubbock OBE with pianist Maki Sekiya, baritone Henry Neill and soprano Hannah Davey. Miss Norman greeted each of the pieces with an affecting and infectious relish. They included Beethoven’s Fur Elise (“He was too much of a genius for one body”), Rdchard Strauss’s Zueignung and Schubert’s An die Nusik.

Miss Norman’s formidable intelligence was evident throughout, though there was an engaging self-deprecation in her manner, a trait I had noticed when talking to her last year at the Blenheim Palace Literary Festival, which is also headed by the indefatigable Sally Dunsmore.

Asked at one point whether she had ever suffered stage-fright, she told us: “I am far too much of a ham to have that.”

The performance was followed by a dinner in Miss Norman’s honour at Worcester College. Hosted by its Provost, Sir Jonathan Bate, the meal featured a delicious Venetian menu devised by the restaurateurs and cookery writers Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi.

The dishes were familiar to those of us who were lucky enough to be served them last autumn when the Caldesis did their stuff at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival.

These included the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, with whom it was a pleasure to become reacquainted at the drinks reception in the Provost’s lodgings.

Lord Carey secured my assistance in effecting an introduction for him to the novelist David Lodge whom I had been listening to earlier in the day discussing his memoir Quite a Good Time to Be Born in the Sheldonian.

Aware that Lodge was a devout Catholic, as is made very clear in his book, Lord C was interested in talking to him on spiritual matters. I left them to get on with it.

No such matters figured in the festival appearance at the Sheldonian of the famously atheist playwright Alan Bennett who was in conversation with his long-time collaborator Nicholas Hytner, who has just stepped down as boss of the National Theatre.

At the close of the evening, Sir Nicholas was presented with the Bodley Medal, for his significant contribution to the arts, by Bodley’s Librarian, Richard Ovenden.

Bennett was fascinating on the subject of his writing, which he told us he plans to continue, though all is not going particularly well at present.

“I go to my table every morning and try to write another play, but so many of them come to nothing. I always do the first 20 minutes and then they fizzle out.

“It is not an alarming new symptom. I’ve been at this game for 25 to 30 years and I still don’t know how plays work.”

Sir Nicholas, for his part, said: “I feel as if I am at the start of my career. We are working on something but I am not going to talk about it in case it doesn’t happen in the way it’s supposed to happen.”

The festival closing dinner took us to a new college venue, Keble and its magnificent dining hall, the longest of its kind in Oxford, even that at Christ Church (though not as wide). To me, it looked rather station like, recalling what somebody once said about Balliol: “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la gare.”

The evening featured an address by Diarmaid MacCullough, Oxford’s professor of the history of the church, about his new TV programme Sex and the Church, which was still called Sex and the West when the festival programme was produced.

Next year it will be the 20th Oxford Literary Festival.

I can’t wait.