Claramae Turner (née Haas; October 28, 1920 – May 18, 2013)[1] was an American operatic contralto, perhaps best known for her appearance in the film Carousel (1956), adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical of the same name.
[2] She made her San Francisco Opera principal debut as The Voice in The Tales of Hoffmann in 1945, and sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1950, appearing in Faust (as Marthe, opposite Raoul Jobin), Boris Godunov (as the Hôtesse, with Ezio Pinza), Aida (as Amneris), Hansel and Gretel (as Gertrud), Roméo et Juliette (as Gertrude, with Jussi Björling and Bidu Sayão), The Marriage of Figaro (as Marcellina), Siegfried (as Erda, with Lauritz Melchior and Astrid Varnay), Cavalleria rusticana (as Lucia), The Barber of Seville (as Berta, opposite Giuseppe Valdengo and Lily Pons), Peter Grimes (as Auntie), and Gianni Schicchi (as Zita).
Turner then sang with the New York City Opera from 1953 to 1969, in The Medium, Hansel and Gretel (now as The Witch), Œdipus rex (as Jocasta, with Richard Cassilly, conducted by Leopold Stokowski), Suor Angelica (as the Zia Principessa, conducted by Julius Rudel), Carmen, Louise (as the Mère), The Ballad of Baby Doe (as Augusta, with Beverly Sills), Dialogues of the Carmelites (as Madame de Croissy), Bomarzo (as Diana Orsini, opposite Salvador Novoa, directed by Tito Capobianco), Iolanthe (as the Queen of the Fairies), Lady Jane in Patience[3] and The Mikado (as Katisha), among others.
[4] She also recorded the role of Ma Moss in Aaron Copland's The Tender Land (opposite Joy Clements and Norman Treigle, conducted by the composer, 1965), Bomarzo (1967), and Gertrud in an English version of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, starring Risë Stevens and Nadine Conner (1947).
For radio, she sang the role of Ulrica in Arturo Toscanini's 1954 concert version of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, co-starring Herva Nelli, Jan Peerce, and Robert Merrill, in the conductor's final complete operatic performance.