[For the full on-line text of this interview, too large for e-mail,
see Mike Richter's site, at http://www.mrichter.com/opera/welcome.htm
Remaining dates for "Ariadne" in the War Memorial are at 8 p.m., Saturday,
9/21, Thursday, 9/26, and a 2 p.m.  matinee on Sunday, 9/29.]

   "When you get older," says Laura Claycomb, "you don't mind making
   a fool of yourself.  I'm willing to take a risk, and that made
   a difference." That difference is between the young soprano's
   shaded, brilliant, acclaimed role debut as Zerbinetta last week
   and the time when she fell in love with the role.

   Measured in years, the difference is more than a decade between
   her appearance now in the San Francisco Opera's new production
   of Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" and the time Claycomb
   studied and trained as an Adler Fellow with the SF Opera Center.

   It was even before then, in her first year with the Merola
   Program, that I first heard her singing, and found that she has
   "an excellent high soprano, but alarmingly poor diction and
   insufficient stage experience," along with a buoyant personality,
   as shown in her happily chatting away on stage while waiting for
   her turn.

   Since then, the high notes got higher and more solid, diction
   improved, stage experience developed exponentially, but she is
   still a nattering nabob, a mother lode of operatic story-telling...

 [Continued on http://www.mrichter.com/opera/welcome.htm]

Janos Gereben/SF
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