Opera has a tremendous gay following, and the amalgamation of creative arts that it requires — music, theater, dance and design — attracts many gay artists. But the advent of openly gay opera singers remains rare. This makes Patricia Racette and Beth Clayton all the more trailblazing: Not only are these renowned singers both out and proud, but their 10-year relationship is public as well.

I had the opportunity to sit with them in their New York City apartment to discuss their careers in opera, their relationship, and how they keep it all together. Their apartment is modern but modest. The friskiest member of this household is their dog, Sappho. They referred to her several times as their "daughter" and, when she took a liking to me, Racette pointed out with great irony that "she loves men."

The couple considers New York their second home after Santa Fe, N.M., where they are building a new house they've designed together. But Racette is originally from a very different environment: Manchester, N.H.

It wasn't until just before college that she actually began voice lessons, with an eye (or ear) on jazz. It was her voice teacher who suggested that she was well-suited to life on the high C's. "I was devastated," she recalled. "My teacher said, 'I really think the classical genre is going to be for you' … and I was like, 'Oh, no!'" But she grew to love opera in college, and a star was born.

Clayton, on the other hand, grew up doing plenty of singing; her father is a Methodist minister. She fell in love with opera after a summer at Tanglewood.

Both of the singers had been out personally before they met. "It was a gradual thing for me," said Racette. "It was in college. But I've never spent too much energy being closeted."

Clayton came out to her family in college: "I fell in love with a woman for the first time and that kinda shook things up a little bit. I went to SMU in Dallas, and I fell in love with another long-haired woman so it was a little bit 'ahh!' A little interesting for everybody, including me. But it was not a phase, as my family perhaps thought at the time."

Then came a fateful 1997 production of Verdi's La Traviata in Santa Fe. The two met at a party before the production began. "It was pretty clear that there was a lot of energy there," Racette remembered. "And then we got together in the summer and we started our staging, and it was lots of fireworks. It was pretty palpable. It was just a matter of time — let's put it that way."

Racette was playing the heroine, Violetta, and Clayton her best friend, Flora. Normally Violetta falls in love with the handsome Alfredo, but this was probably the first time she fell for Flora instead.

In Act II, during a scene where Violetta faints at Flora's home, Racette recalled an "illegal kiss": "I was on the floor with Beth and, per the staging, she comes in and scoops me up. But she leaned over and just plants one on me! I had to turn my entire body into her because I couldn't stop laughing when I was supposed to be passed out!"

Despite these high jinks, Racette received great notice for her portrayal of the amorous Violetta. "Falling in love will do that to a girl," she quipped.

Racette (left) and Clayton

Since then their careers have taken off, and often take them in different directions. For Racette, high points have included the lead in Emmeline — a world premiere — and her first performance at America's leading house, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in 1995. "My Met debut was really a magical evening — this was pre-Beth, mind you! — but I was so excited," Racette recalled. "Everything was right, the audience was great, and I had such a cross-section of my life attending."

More recently, Racette has received great notice for her searing portrayal of Madama Butterfly. Although often portrayed as a victim, Racette brings new strength to this classic character.

"I love her journey," she said. "There is a complexity of that character. If you were that person — and that's how I approach any role, really putting myself into that situation — this is someone that has nothing. Who has not heard from her husband for three years. Has had his child. The amount of strength and patience and the ability to hang on to that hope, I don't know that I could do that. She does, and that's what makes it heartbreaking."