PSU Magazine Fall 2003

Loud, complicated, demanding opera roles are this alumnus' forte. By James Bash A t 6 feet 5 inches and with a double-wide chest, Clayton Brainerd '86 is a big guy with a big voice. It's a voice perfectly suited for music played by large orchestras with lots of French horns, trombones, trumpets , and tubas, music that would strip the gears off the larynxes of many of the best singers in the world. Fortunately, Brainerd was born for this loud, complex music, and has built a career in which his declamatory and heroic bass-baritone embodies the characters he plays-especially Wotan, chief of the Nordic gods, in Richard Wagner's Ring operas. Brainerd has performed Wotan and many other roles on stages as far 0ung as New Zealand, Japan, Argentina, Spain, France , and Scotland. His per– formance in the Scottish Opera's new production of Die Walkure at the 2001 Edinburgh Festival earned him a glow– ing review in The New York Times and the coveted Herald Angel Award as one of the festival's most outstanding per– formers. Consequently, the Scottish Opera booked the 44-year old singer for this year's production of Siegfried 6 PSU MAGAZINE FALL 2002 and for the 2003 production of Aida. "l feel blessed to live this truly fabu– lous life," says Brainerd. "I love to work with these genius conductors, musi– cians, stage directors, and all of the peo– ple involved to create world-class art." Brainerd has about 25 operatic roles under his belt, and has performed three-quarters of them on stage. The others he has thoroughly prepared so that he will be ready when the oppor– tunity to perform them arises. "Each role that I take on involves a massive amount of work," explains Brainerd. "l take the text out of the opera and translate it word for word. I recite the text over and over. l learn the music, the rhythms, the pitches, and put it all back together, interpret– ing the music. " For Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande , Brainerd took four months to learn the gigantic, complicated role of Golaud. He has learned many roles for each of the four Ring operas and it took him a couple of years to master each one. He intends to take 10 years to study the music for Hans Sachs, the central char– acter in Wagner's Meistersinger, consid- ered one of the most demanding roles in opera literature. Y et Brainerd didn't grow up in a home steeped in Bach and Brahms. ln fact, his parents watched Lawrence Welk every week, leading Brainerd to think that the tunes on that show were classical music. He later turned into a rebellious youth who was more interested in drugs than in learning. "l drank a lot, smoked marijuana, did LSD, and wasted school from seventh grade through high school," explains Brainerd. "l think that l graduated with a 1. 9 grade point average. l had a fast car. l was into fighting-just being a hoodlum. The teachers probably gradu– ated me just to get me out of there." After high school Brainerd worked at a lumber mill until he was forced to take medical leave following a serious on-the-job injury. During his recovery he heard classical music for the first time on an album of Beethoven sym– phonies that a friend had given him for Christmas. "Up until that time l mostly listene~