Claude Heater was born in Oakland, California in 1927. After a short stint in the Marine Corps in 1945-46 he studied voice in Los Angeles building his voice from scratch. His teacher first refused him saying it was a waste of his time.
He moved to New York City in 1950 to further study singing and acting at the American Theater Wing. In 1951 he made his Broadway debut as a singer and juggler in the original cast of Top Banana. In 1952, he sang as baritone in the world premiere at Brandeis University of Leonard Bernstein’s 'Trouble in Tahiti'. After singing the roles of 'Germont' in Traviata and 'Valentin' in Faust with the Amato Opera in NYC, in 1952 he moved to Italy to continue vocal studies as an Opera Singer, funded by the G.I Bill. He finished his study at Scuola Musicale di Milano in Milan, Italy after a year. He debuted as Sharpless in Milan’'s Teatro Piccolo in Madama Butterfly and sang Count di Luna in Trovatore in a neighboring city. He toured Spain with an Italian company headed by Mario Fillipeschi with several baritone roles. He was engaged in Würzburg, Germany in 1954 to open the season as Luna in Il Trovatore and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly along with other roles until he returned to Broadway for the musical the 'Most Happy Fella’ in 1955.
He returned to Europe in 1956 to sing in Basel, Switzerland with Montserrat Caballé in Tosca, Pagliacci and Tiefland along with Masked Ball and Lohengrin. He went from Basel to Berlin to alternate with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Masked Ball and Don Carlo and with Hermann Prey in other roles. His debut was as Escamillo in Carmen.
After a successful Germont in Traviata at the Staatsoper in Vienna in '57, he was engaged there for 3 years as a baritone under Herbert Von Karajan who took him to La Scala to sing in his Tristan and Isolde with Birgit Nilsson. Claude Heater sang again the role with Birgit Nilsson at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus that he sang with her at La Scala and also debuted at the same time in 1966 as Siegmund to Gwyneth Jones' Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre. His first Tristan was in Hannover, Germany. (After the grueling 5 hour opera, he bowed for another 26 minutes of applause) He prepared the role in Salzburg and Munich along with Parsifal for his Munich National Theater debut under the guidance of Max Lorenz who was the favorite Tristan in Europe while Lauritz Melchoir sang it at the Metropolitan Opera.
Claude made the change from baritone to helden tenor after his San Francisco Opera season where he sang 5 roles. His last baritone role was singing opposite Mary Costa in Blood Moon and Dame Joan Sutherland in Lucia di Lammermoor. He made his voice change with the help of his neighbor and idol Mario Del Monaco who later bought his white Cadillac from him. Their Villas in Rome were attached by a single wall. Mario came to Claude's Flying Dutchman debut at La Scala and Claude in turn went to Mario's Walküre debut in Stuttgart. He became a Mario fan after seeing Mario in Otello and La Wally at La Scala. He also saw Ramón Vinay as Cyrano de Bergerac at La Scala as well. Claude was a fan of Ramón after seeing him at the Metropolitan Opera as Otello and honored when Ramón sang Iago in Claude's Boston Otello with Renata Tebaldi.
After his debut as Tristan, Claude sang it in eight different Tristan productions in two years including The Festival of Two Worlds with Giancarlo Menotti at Spoletto and Trieste, as well as the Liceu in Barcelona and the Hamburg Opera with Birgit Nilsson followed by the Dresden Opera with Astrid Varnay.
He finished his Boston Otello with Renata Tebaldi and Ramón Vinay as Iago and took a midnight plane to Italy where he had a staged orchestra rehearsal of Tristan in Genoa the next day. Both his Bayreuth and La Scala debuts came in 1966 as Siegmund singing with Gwyneth Jones and Erik with Leonie Rysanek.
He had five seasons at Barcelona's Liceu singing Tristan, Tannhäuser, Siegmund, Siegfried that he staged as well. Montserrat Caballé stepped in for an ailing Anja Silja to sing the Elizabeth in Tannhäuser as a favor to Claude who sang with her in her first Tosca, Nedda in Pagliacci and Marta in Tiefland in Basel, Switzerland.
After singing several leading roles in Brussels, Belgium, including a highly acclaimed ‘Ring Digest’ Claude was asked to do a Belgium TV film of Tristan and Isolde. This is the first full length film Claude has done since the 1958 Academy Award film Ben Hur where he played the role of The Christ. Charlton Heston spoke highly of his performance in his book The Actors Life. Charlton Heston and Claude appeared together in 2003 at the Academy of Arts in Los Angeles in Ben Hur's last showing as the last two remaining actors in the film. Claude was a General Director of the Oakland Opera of California during the 1988-1990 seasons where among others, Jerome Hines appeared as Boris Godunov . He chooses to develop some dramatic voices from scratch in his San Francisco studio for the last 20 years.
