PSU Magazine Fall 2003

But in his final year, Brainerd was hired to sing with the Stuttgart Opera Chorus, and he began to overextend his voice. "I was strong as an ox and could do it, but it ended up wrecking my voice," says Brainerd. "I crashed and burned in the biggest way. What tipped it over was that 1 was singing the wrong opera literature. Verdi's music is written for a higher vocal range. My voice became so muscle bound that I couldn't even finish my senior recital, and I came back to the tates with my tail between my legs." After investing a year in retraining his voice, Brainerd stopped singing altogether. Instead he did some logging in the Cascades, worked at a furniture factory, sold cars, and quickly began to lose hope for a career in opera. "But I'd turn on the radio and hear a broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera and start drooling all over again," recalls Brainerd. Through a friend, Brainerd went to Tacoma and met Bill Eddy, the voice teacher of acclaimed Wagnerian tenor Gary Lakes. Over the next five years, 8 PSU MAGAZINE FALL 2002 Brainerd put his voice ba k together, and in January 1996 he got his big break with the Arizona Opera, singing the role of Wotan in a production of Das Rheingold. Since then, Brainerd has been kept busy, singing operas and appearing in concert with symphony orchestras worldwide. "There are not many Wotans in the world," says his former teacher, Dobson. "Clayton brings a depth to the role that is perfect. " B rainerd's performances have also included last minute hero– ics, such as when he 0ew to Buenos Aires on one day's notice to replace an ailing James Morris, opera's reigning king of Wotans, in a produc– tion of Die Walhiire . "After I got to Buenos Aires, there wasn't any time for a musical rehearsal," recalls Brainerd. "They just gave me a general idea of what would happen on stage. There were going LO be some 0ashes and a bonfire at the end of this five-hour opera. And this was the first time 1 had ever performed the role of Wotan on stage in this opera! " With one day's notice, Brainerd successfully took on the role of Wotan (his first performance of the role on stage) in a Buenos Aires production of Richard Wagner's Die Walkiire. Brainerd's performances were a complete success. Then, because the Argentine currency was unstable, the opera company handed him $16 ,000 in American cash. He went back to his hotel room, threw the money up in the air, and swam in it for an hour. Besides his stage appearances, Brainerd has sung excerpts from Mod– est Mussorgsky's Dream of the Peasant Grishho in a recording with the New Jersey Symphony called Heaven & Hell and made a live recording from Carnegie Hall of Wagner's Tlistan und Isolde. 'Tm not singing because I'm in love with the sound of my own voice ," says Brainerd. "l sing because I get to spend my life with these musical geniuses and their masterpieces. Creating art of this caliber releases me from my ego. I can be the vehicle for this great music , and l can't envision doing anything else. " D (James Bash, a longtime member of the Portland Symphonic Choi,; is a Portland freelance writer.)