Charlotte Cannon

Charlotte was born in the UK, the fourth of five children. She remembers spending a lot of quality time with her dad, listening to Wagner’s Ring Cycle.  “My father would tell me the stories, relating the myths to real life.  It made it all so approachable for me.”

Her early musical exposure led to violin and viola lessons, and then to some enviable teenage experiences. Charlotte saw performances by The Ramones, Blondie, and Tom Petty and also developed an early interest in punk rock. She went to all of David Bowie’s concerts!

But despite all of the early musical experiences, Charlotte says that medicine was always going to be “it.”  “I decided at age 15 to become a doctor and was a practicing physician by age 21,” says Charlotte.

“I was one of the first acute care physicians in England.  It was exhilarating but exhausting, and opera is what helped me unwind.”

Charlotte tells how she would leave work at 4 p.m., drive into London to the English National Opera to ‘“get filled up with music,” and then was home in bed by 1 a.m.  “I suppose I was a bit of a rebel—people would say ‘you can’t do it all,’ and I wanted to prove that I could!”

Family connections brought Charlotte to Steamboat in the 1980s. Her two sons were born in Colorado and all the family are avid skiers.

After retiring from medicine and cardiology, Charlotte began ticking boxes on her bucket list.  She has sailed the Atlantic and visited Antarctica, Bhutan, and Japan.

On her wish list for Opera Steamboat?  “Elegant outdoor opera experiences like Glyndebourne, England.”  During the early 20th century many old, Jacobean country homes were repurposed into performance venues to help pay the bills.  Says Charlotte, “You wear your long gowns, take your picnic, and stroll the gardens in between acts.  It’s fantastic!  We could do that here!”