Grand Dames
International opera divas Susan Graham and Laura Claycomb haven't forgotten their Texas roots. They came back to star in two productions by the Houston Grand Opera.
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LC: Then my teacher kept putting me in competitions and I kept winning them. I was the queen of NATS [National Association of Teachers of Singing]. In my junior year in high school I won the upper division competition. So my senior year they didn't quite know what to do with me, and they put me in the freshman college division . . . and I won that! And so on. She kept pulling me along.
TM: You attended SMU.
LC: Yes, I studied with Barbara Hill Moore. I had been to Interlochen with all those young musicians and had such a great time. I looked around at other schools but just decided to stay in Dallas with the teacher I knew. I got my degree in music and languages—Spanish, Italian, and French. I actually had my professional debut my senior year in Shreveport as Adele in Die Fledermaus.
TM: From there you went to San Francisco?
LC: At the time, I was the youngest person ever accepted in the Merola program [the young artists program at the San Francisco Opera]. I covered the roles for the lead singers. I learned so many roles there—Zerbinetta. . . . I worked really hard on acting, because I knew when I was in high school the reason I didn't get the roles was because I wasn't very good at acting.
TM: Tell me about your big break.
LC: In 1994 I got the call from a friend to fly to Geneva to cover the role of Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. I had my bags packed to go to New York, and I just got on a different plane. I did all the rehearsals. She [the diva] was on her way to the airport and got in a car wreck and hit her head and canceled. Oh, dear. So I got to do all of the shows, and I had done all of the rehearsals. It was such a big deal, and everything happened from there.
TM: So you actually had a rather smooth road to stardom?
LC: In retrospect it seems rather smooth. You know, it seems like childbirth—or at least what I understand of childbirth. You know, you have this wonderful child and you forget about the labor; and it was a lot of labor.
TM: But you were discovered relatively early.
LC: But what does it mean to be discovered? I feel like I'm only being discovered right now. And that's ten years down the road. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden I'm singing. The one thing that's been my focus is to do bigger and better things, the meatier things that are of interest to me. The big thing in my life is recording, because that is how you get known—that's just a fact of life. But the recording industry is dying. You have to have some gimmick. I'm a lumberjack and I sing opera. Well, how about, "I've studied opera and I sing opera?"
Susan Graham comes in and we exchange a few words about the difficulties of singing while sliding down an incline, as she had done in the previous month's Ariodante.
TM: Susan Graham, I feel like I know you after I heard you sing last November in Ariodante.
Susan Graham: Well, good. You do! It was certainly one of the highlights of my opera-singing career.
TM: You are from New Mexico?
SG: Technically, I am. But I was educated here. I studied voice here. I think you should be able to claim the state that you went through puberty in.
TM: And that was Texas.
SG: Yes, I came to Midland when I was thirteen years old.
TM: I've heard that you got interested in opera after seeing an HGO traveling group in Midland.
SG: Yes. They did Cosí fan tutte. I had just been in a school production of The Sound of Music, in which I sang Maria, and I realized that it was not so different.
TM: And then you went off to Texas Tech?
SG: Yes. Gene Kenny was the choral director there, and I had attended a choral workshop. When I got there I discovered the opera department. Several well-known singers have come from there, including Terry Cook, Bruce Ford, and Mary Jane Johnson. I took my technical training there with Mary Gillas.
TM: And now you've made an international career in opera. How is it that you came to a Texas opera house for the first time so relatively late, and that you came for two productions, practically back-to-back?
SG: One summer about two years ago, David Gockley approached me about doing Ariodante. There is that much lead time, and I just had to wait my turn. And we made up for it.
TM: I understand that there was a change of plans. You had premiered the role of Sister Prejean in Dead Man Walking in San Francisco and planned to repeat that role here, but the decision was made to do The Merry Widow instead.
SG: I remark every day how different an experience that is from The Merry Widow. Dead Man Walking is huge, profound, and life-changing, while The Merry Widow is so much fun, it's hard to remember that this is a profession. The very first day the director said, "You know, I just think you are going to be one of the most wonderful merry widows ever." And I just started laughing. Ariodante was work, a challenge every single day, but this is just like falling off a log.
TM: And I know you could do that, singing all the way. But, of course, you had to learn two roles in very quick succession
SG: The Merry Widow I've seen so much. Not only do you leave singing the songs, you also enter practically singing the songs.
TM: How is it that you moved on from Lubbock to your career?
SG: Well, I attended the Manhattan School of Music and studied with Marlena Malas. I still see her. I go for six to eight months at a time between lessons, pick up bad habits, and then go see her. That's what good technique is all about, to ensure a long and healthy vocal life. Then I started going to opera theater programs, like all young singers. I debuted at St. Louis and then at the Met in 1991.
TM: And the rest is history, as they say. What do you have in your future?
SG: Heroic lady roles, the noble ladies, like Gluck's Iphigenie. Of course, the trouser roles will be there—except for Cherubino—but I'm planning to do [Henry Purcell's] Dido and Aeneas soon, for instance, with Ian Bostridge in London.
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