A Life in Music

A lifelong friend of mine is retiring after 25 years of singing with the San Francisco Opera. As an artist and a human, Claire has inspired me. I wanted to mark her milestone here.

Acknowledgments: Joe Giammarco and Celia Smith Cussen. Photo credits: Joe Giammarco

Claire Kelm circa 1975

"Why should we be in

desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a woman does not keep pace with her companions, perhaps it is because she hears a different drummer. Let her step to the music she hears, however measured and far away."

--Henry David Thoreau, by way

of Claire's high school year book

The year was 1971. Eighteen-year-olds in America had just gotten the vote. Vietnam raged; hot pants were a thing. Beverly Sills and Placido Domingo starred in La Traviata at the Hollywood Bowl. And just over the hill, a life in music was getting started.

On a hot September morning in the west end of the San Fernando Valley, Claire Kelm donned an itchy wool uniform skirt, traveled nine miles from her Encino home, and lined up with 120 other freshmen for her first day at Louisville High School.

A small private girls' school, Louisville was reputedly college prep. It did have some things to offer: reasonable academics. A handful of AP courses. Lots of sports (no pesky boys to compete with); a surprisingly good volleyball team for a school its size. Another thing Louisville had: music. Lots of singing, dancing and performing possibilities for any girl with a modicum of talent and a little confidence. What would

14-year-old Claire do with the banquet of possibilities?

What wouldn't she do?

Early Signs of Talent

Claire was born in Latrobe, PA. When she was10, her family relocated to Los Angeles to follow her father's career. One day not long after the family had settled in Encino, a "peppy little Jaguar sports car" pulled up to the house, summoned by Claire's mother, who thought it was time for Claire to recommence the piano lessons begun at age 7. Out stepped Beverley, a recent UCLA music grad, who played piano, violin, and French horn. Beverley's influence would prove profound and enduring.

"She taught me piano but so much more," says Claire. "She never pressured me to practice, and as a result, I became a crack sight-reader — I had to play the music when she arrived even if I hadn’t practiced!" Beverley took Claire to concerts, played duets with her, and immersed her in the musical world she inhabited with her husband Chase, a trumpet player. "Beverley and Chase became not exactly my second parents (they were too young), but my mentors and cheerleaders. And lifelong friends."

Claire finished grade school at St. Cyril's --- one of Louisville's feeders. Its music program was modest (nonexistent?). But like most parochial elementary schools, it must have sent the girls out onto the blacktop to play volleyball each day at recess. By the time Claire reached high school, she had mad skills.

The other thing she had was striking musical ability. Piano lessons continued with Beverley, who decided Claire needed to play a second instrument and added flute. Claire learned guitar from a troop mate at Girl Scouts. She sang in Louisville's two choirs --- Las Cantantes (basically, all comers) and Les Chanteuses (membership by audition) and in the freshman and sophomore year musical productions, Oklahoma and Carousel.

"Claire was always an amazing sight reader," says friend and fellow singer Celia Smith Cussen, who joined Claire in "Sister Nuala's whacky advanced choir" and later, at the Southern California Honor Choir. "She was an alto at the time (that would change), and also played flute and guitar. Claire was good at everything."

Claire had her first voice lesson at age 16 with Suzanne Wilkie, a mezzo singer who lived nearby. "I had started doing choral stuff," says Claire. "My mom asked: Do you want to take voice lessons? I said: Sure. I guess."

The "choral stuff" reached well beyond high school. She sang with the Pierce College choir, the Southern California Honor Choir, the All-State Honor Choir, and the UCLA Chamber Chorus directed by Roger Wagner -- all before the age of 18.

"Roger Wagner lived up the street from us," says Claire, "and my parents attended those concerts. At some point I expressed interest, and they started taking me along."

The Road to Palo Alto, Economics and German

Rockin' a boyish look in 1979

For college, Claire headed north and plunged headlong into Stanford's eclectic musical landscape. "From Renaissance to modern and Baroque to Beach Boys," reported the Quad (Stanford's yearbook) "there is a student group on campus that sings your song." Claire found most of them: the Chamber Chorale, Memorial Church Choir, University Chorus, Ram's Head, Stanford Savoyards and Counterpoint. As a freshperson, she was a member of the Salvation Army Band in Guys and Dolls (and Skye Masterson's real-life girlfriend). She performed in Fiddler on the Roof and Kiss Me Kate. When she wasn't onstage, she was busy producing, directing, conducting. She excelled at everything.

When it came time to declare a major, Claire opted for the practical: economics with a German minor. She went to Vienna and Berlin her junior year, sang with choirs in both cities, and attended musical events "at least once a week." Back on campus for her senior year, she dived back into musical direction for Gaieties (the Big Game musical), produced Cabaret and conducted Pippin.

Al fresco performance

In the years following graduation, Claire had a strategy for paying the bills and pursuing her art. "I never

wanted a full-time job," she says. "I tried to work 75-80 percent time." She took arts-adjacent jobs in administration, marketing, PR and education. Her senior year at Stanford, she was "back room" at Admissions --- basically, organizing files for 20,000 applicants. She worked for Tresidder Union, the City of Mountain View, Stanford Lively Arts and the Stanford Drama Department. She has held church music jobs continuously since the 1980s --- section leader, soloist, cantor --- at St. Mary's Cathedral, St. Ignatius, First Congregational of Palo Alto, St. Luke's and St. Nicholas. She was a music teacher at Nativity Elementary and music teacher and volleyball coach at Menlo School.

Going Pro; Going Solo

Generously sharing the curtain call

In 1985, another act opened. Seeking deeper mastery, and empowered by a modest inheritance, Claire enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for a master of music in vocal performance.

"Going to the Conservatory turned me into a professional singer," says Claire. "I had had paid jobs before -- church jobs, the Symphony Chorus. I had been onstage." But study of solo repertoire, taught by professional musicians and in the company of students heading for careers in music, brought a new perspective. She reveled in the studies, tracking up and down Highway 280. She emerged in 1988 with a new degree, a new level of professionalism, and a new view of herself as an artist.

The Conservatory did more than help Claire go pro. It helped her go solo.

Up until then, her focus had largely been choral and ensemble singing. Enjoying the technical demands of early music and Baroque, she built a robust resume with American Bach Soloists Choir, Theatre of Voices, San Francisco Choral Artists, Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. She toured. She recorded. In time, she amassed a set of solo oratorio credits too long to list. But still, she saw herself as largely a choral singer.

Choral singers often learn on-the-job

With training and continued exposure to other professionals, that would change. Her first solo role was in 1991, in a Stanford Savoyards production of The Gondoliers. Claire liked opera/operetta, and had a particular fondness for Gilbert & Sullivan. Soon after her solo turn at Savoyards, she found a company that would become a theater home.

"Lamplighters had been on my radar for a while," says Claire. "I went to see a show and I thought 'Oh. This is the group I want to be with'." For the next 15 years, she would appear regularly with Lamplighters: Alice in The Secret Garden, Anna in The Merry Widow, Elsie in The Yeoman of the Guard, Constance in the The Sorceror, Donna Lucia in Where's Charlie. She rules Princess Ida, with four turns in that title role. During the late 90s, with the Berkeley Opera, she sang Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni.

A realization later, after she started singing with the San Francisco Opera Chorus, cemented Claire's conception of herself as a solo artist. " I looked around and noticed that people with my level of skill and experience were auditioning for solos. They were getting solos. I thought: Why shouldn't I?"

Ascending to the Opera

Dr. Faustus

In 1999, a rumor reached Claire through her singer network: the San Francisco Opera Chorus would have an unexpected soprano opening and would be holding auditions.

There are three opera companies in America that have full-time professional choruses with unions, contracts and benefits: New York, Chicago and San Francisco. In the world of professional singers, it's something of a pinnacle. The Chorus Director, Ian Robertson, had seen Claire perform elsewhere. Despite some misgivings, she went for it. And got it. And then, considered turning it down.

She was teaching at Menlo School at the time, and was still interested in other kinds of performing. "At Symphony Chorus," she says, "we had a history of people just disappearing once they went to the Opera."

The Pearl Fishers

Friends intervened, telling her You can't say no! This offer is not going to come around again. You have to figure it out!

Predictably, Claire did. She taught in the mornings, jumped on 280 in the afternoons, and attacked a steep learning curve of memorization, rehearsals, costume fittings, language coaching, solo auditions, performances and other demands that make up the life of an opera chorus singer. That life would last for a quarter century.

With Director Ian Robertson

Here are some of the stats (partial and probably imperfect):

The Magic Flute

Years: 25

Productions: 150+

Directors: 100+

Rehearsals: 1000+

Costumes: 500+

Wigs: 100+

Miles on 280: 60,000+

Husbands: 1

Tosca is a reliably popular opera. Bloody story. Soaring Puccini score. Something of a tradition in San Francisco. Claire remembers the 2001 version of it for something else: the irresistible supernumerary who stood beside her one night at rehearsal while they waited to make a stage-left entrance for the finale of Act I. She had noticed him before because of his Dartmouth shirt. He had noticed her before because "she had this adorable little page boy haircut.

Again with the boyish look (Tosca)

"She was dressed like a boy," says Joe. "I didn't know her name. I didn't know anything about her. She could have been married; a lesbian. Because of the costume and wig, I couldn't figure out who she was." He did some sleuthing.

On the fateful night when they waited for their entrance, "I was trying to screw up my courage to talk to her," says Joe. "And then, she spoke to me first." They talked. He asked her out. She told him to wait, she needed to break up with somebody. Ever efficient, Claire soon accomplished this and reported back: job done. They were married a little over four years later in a stunningly beautiful, musical wedding at Stanford Memorial Chapel. Dozens of friend from the Opera, Lamplighters and early music groups performed.

The Marriage of Figaro

No doubt in Claire's mind (Tannhauser)

Next Act

The Rake's Progress

As Claire leaves behind the demands of the Opera, other things call. She and Joe want to travel, and she wants to spend more time with family and friends.

Artistically, "Claire sees herself as an ensemble singer, with a special love for early music," says Joe. "everything from Renaissance to Baroque; Handel to Bach. There are a lot of places she can take that." Celia believes that directing and acting are in Claire's future.

"As a musician," says Celia, "Claire is amazing at the technical stuff: the difficult harmonies, the split tones, whole tones, quarter tones. Being in between two keys. The rest of us don't hear that. Claire can do it."

Claire inhabits her roles (Simon Boccanegra)

But Celia points out something else that has distinguished Claire onstage: her acting ability. She inhabits her characters, moment-to-moment. "You look at the other singers onstage," says Celia, "and they look wooden; like they are just waiting to sing their next line. Claire discovered with time that she is a really, really good actress. The technical stuff got her in and her dramatic ability kept her in. She started out as a musician, became a singer, and ended up an actor."

As Claire and Joe embark on their next act, they take with them priceless memories, a desire to keep making music, and lifelong friendships -- people from across the musical spectrum and around the globe. Claire is going out on top, and on her own terms.

The curtain may be falling on Claire's time with the Opera. But the opus isn't finished.

Author's Note:

It's challenging, making a living in the arts. The world doesn't always reward it in tangible ways. Watching someone do it; succeed at it? That's inspiring.

I have been friends with Claire for 52 years. I've seen some of her highs and lows; the frustrations and anxieties that come with living in this area and trying to be a singer; the dedication it requires --- she has been taking voice lessons, uninterrupted, for 50 years! I have witnessed some of her transcendent moments, when people with passion and talent come together in a special kind of alchemy and make magic on a stage.

I cannot claim to be an opera aficionado. Its technical aspects and inner workings elude me. But here's my very, very favorite thing about it: getting to watch Claire make her dreams come true in that realm.

Brava, my friend. Wishing both of you all good things, always.

---Elizabeth Hughes Sloan ("Lizzie" to Claire)

November 16, 2023