Voice: | Soprano |
Nationality: | American |
Year of Birth: | 1949 |
Cynthia Clarey (born April 25, 1949) is an American operatic singer and educator. In opera, she has sung both soprano and mezzo-soprano roles and is often associated with the role of Carmen.
Clarey was born in Smithfield, Virginia. At the age of ten she moved with her family to Rocky Mount, North Carolina. As a child, Clarey sang in choirs for her school and the family's church.
After graduating from high school in 1966, Clarey went to Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study music. She earned her bachelor of music degree in 1970. Clarey then enrolled at the Juilliard School in New York City. She initially intended to pursue a career in musical theater, not opera, leading to Clarey walking out of a master class with opera singer Maria Callas when questioned on the matter. Despite this conflict with the school faculty, Clarey continued at the school and earned a postgraduate diploma in 1972.
Clarey made her debut with the American Opera Center singing the role of Pamina in Mozart's Magic Flute. She worked professionally as a chorister in New York City for a time, singing for shows like Carmina Burana and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company's Revelations. In these early years as an African-American performer, Clarey recalls incidents of racial prejudice, including a time when a director wanted to remove a black chorister from a scene because "she did not look authentic to Mozart."