Greta Ball
Soprano
Soprano Greta Ball made her professional debut last year to great acclaim as Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw under Maestro Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival in Virginia, prompting Anne Midgette of The Washington Post to proclaim that Ms. Ball "offered some of the biggest and most climactic sounds of the night." Wrote Philip Kennicott of her debut, "the most gratifying singing came from soprano Greta Ball, as Miss Jessel. Ball has a large voice... it is a real instrument, professionally and confidently used and in service of a sound dramatic conception of the role."
Since her debut, Ms. Ball has also covered the role of Princess Lan in Tea: A Mirror of the Soul (Tan Dun conducting) at Opera Philadelphia. As a result of her performance at Castleton last summer, Ms. Ball was invited by the Castleton Festival to return this coming summer to reprise the role of Miss Jessel. She was also re-engaged by Opera Philadelphia to perform Frasquita in their upcoming production of Carmen.
Ms. Ball has been featured as a Young Artist with the Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Opera Theater and Opera Santa Barbara. As a Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Singer, she appeared as Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Anne Trulove in The Rake's Progress, Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel and Iphigénie in Iphigénie en Tauride in the Apprentice Scenes. Cover roles at Santa Fe included Tigrane in Handel's Radamisto and Princess Lan in Tan Dun's Tea: A Mirror of Soul in its American premiere. Additional highlights include covering Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito and Mrs. Coyle in Britten's Owen Wingrave at Chicago Opera Theater, as well as performing the role of Margot in The Merry Widow and covering Frasquita in Carmen at Opera Santa Barbara.
An active recitalist, Ms. Ball has performed at numerous venues, including the Chicago Cultural Center's historic Preston Bradley Hall as a part of the Award Winners in Concert Series and Chicago Opera Theater's artist recital series. Featured solo concert appearances include Berio's Magnificat for Two Sopranos and Orchestra, and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms with the North Shore Choral Society. Ms. Ball is the winner of the Joseph DiVenere Memorial Award from the Bel Canto Competition and the Annemarie Gerts Award from Musicians Club of Women, and has also been honored by the Meistersinger Competition in Graz, Austria, the Society of American Musicians and the McDowell Foundation of Oak Park, Illinois.
In Chicago, Ms. Ball performed in the Midwest premiere of John Adams' A Flowering Tree at Chicago Opera Theater, and several roles with Chicago's American Opera Group, including Adele in Die Fledermaus, Musetta in La Bohème, Gilda in Rigoletto and Lucy Brown in Weill's The Threepenny Opera. Of her Adele performance, Catherine Wilkinson writes: "this role requires a crystal-clear voice in the stratosphere, a snappy delivery of one-liners, and a believable heap of melodramatic baggage, all of which Ms. Ball delivered with suave naturalness. Her rendition of the famous "Laughing Song"... is rife with sarcasm and rings valiantly throughout the theatre. Ms. Ball's Adele not only has the endurance to sing a demanding score with energy and mastery up to the very last high note, but her pacing on stage is exceptional, both elegant and tongue-in-cheek." She made her Chicago Cultural Center debut as the Queen in Monteverdi's chamber opera Il Ballo delle Ingrate and performed Celia in the U.S. premiere of Cimarosa's L'Infedelt` Fedele with Millennium Chamber Players. Internationally, Ms. Ball appeared as the title role of Naughty Marietta with the AIMS Festival Orchestra under the baton of Roland Seiffarth in Graz, Austria.
Ms. Ball completed a Masters Degree in Vocal Performance at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where her roles included Silberklang in The Impresario, Yum-Yum in The Mikado and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. A native of Oak Park, Illinois, she completed a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, majoring in French and Humanities/Cultural Studies. During her coursework she spent a semester abroad studying at Université Paul Valèry in Montpellier, France.