For Atlanta native Gabrielle Beteag, 2020 turned out to be a banner year. At a time when most of us were at home trying out new recipes or streaming Netflix, the gifted young mezzo-soprano — who makes her solo recital debut at Morningside Presbyterian Church on Saturday — not only entered The Atlanta Opera’s studio artist program (and sang the role of Mercédès in The Threepenny Carmen the following year), she was also accepted into the prestigious Merola Program at San Francisco Opera.
Finally, in a dazzling show of derring-do, Beteag was a grand finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. That’s an extraordinary stream of accomplishments for a young classical singer at any time, let alone when the world was shut down.
It hasn’t gone to her head though. A conversation with Beteag reveals her to be an unusually perceptive and grounded young person — and one suspects a truly kind one as well. Beteag’s musical instincts were evident early on, when the only thing that would ease her crying as an infant was a VHS of a Yanni concert her parents played beside her crib.
A couple of years later, shoppers at a local Harris Teeter were startled when the toddler stood up in her mother’s shopping cart and belted out “American Pie” for all to hear. At six she was singing in the Atlanta Youth Choir, and by the time she entered Brookwood High she was demonstrating great proficiency on guitar. A bachelors in vocal performance at University of West Georgia came next, followed by her Masters at Georgia State.
Beteag is now in her second year as an Adler Fellow at San Francisco, where she has performed a variety of roles including the honor of creating Iras in the world premiere of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra. This fall, she journeys to Cape Town, South Africa to compete in prestigious Operalia contest, the only Atlanta native in memory to do so.
Her recital is part of the Nancy Frampton Rising Artist Series and promises to field some interesting repertoire, including works from two pioneering female composers, Cécile Chaminade and Ruth Crawford Seeger, as well as selections from Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and bits of Berlioz, Brahams and Ralph Vaughn Williams.
ArtsATL sat down with Beteag to discuss her recital, developing career and why the challenge of sight reading music is her idea of fun.
ArtsATL: How did it feel to win the Met National Council?
Gabrielle Beteag: I am so glad you asked me what it felt like because people usually ask about the singing, and I don’t remember. I blacked out on that. I remember holding the stage manager’s hand. He told me to walk out on stage; then I remember walking off and grabbing his hand again.
My favorite memory of the competition though is also my favorite of my entire life, and that was seeing my husband’s face when they announced me as the winner. I spotted him in the audience and that was just amazing.
ArtsATL: You are now in your second year as an Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera. This may be an obvious question but for the uninitiated, what is the value of such programs for an emerging artist?
Beteag: Actually, that’s a great question because most people don’t understand the trajectory of this career. I can’t even begin to describe the value of having the opportunity to study at one of the most important houses in the country, and work with the best coaches in the world. You are surrounded by a community that passionately values fostering growth in the next generation. I began in the Merola program. The performance opportunities, and the prospect of that all possibly leading to an Adler Fellowship is incredible. Only a handful are taken, and it is an honor.
ArtsATL: Word on the street is that you love to sight read, especially difficult atonal or minimalist music.
Beteag: Yes! It’s like a rapid-fire logic puzzle. People think that playing rock/paper/scissors is all up to chance. It’s not. It’s a logic puzzle that you can win if you learn to anticipate what your opponent is going to do. Every composer has their own musical language, mechanics that they savor over others. It is really fun for me to sight read and anticipate what is going to happen next. It just scratches an itch in my brain.
ArtsATL: Where do you see your vocal development and repertory going?
Beteag: Sometimes thinking about that scares the hell out of me, to be honest, though in a good way. I am just starting to tiptoe into bigger repertoire. Berlioz is my favorite composer right now. I imagine I will eventually sing the Verdi and Wagner rep. That prospect is thrilling.
I also love new works. I have always been drawn to that kind of aesthetic. The experience of premiering a role in Antony and Cleopatra cemented that for me. I will always love the beautiful standard repertory; but with contemporary music you never become desensitized to beauty, because it seems absent — until it’s not. Then it knocks you off your feet. It’s like watching a movie that is only action, you aren’t wowed. But if they take care to occasionally be quiet, you appreciate it more. That’s how I feel with contemporary music. It may be atonal, or crunchy, but then you have moments of staggering beauty.
In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra has a mad scene that is pointy and harsh. Then it melts away as she tells her handmaidens to gather her things to end her life. This quiet beauty begins to bloom as she reflects on her peace with the situation. I am getting goosebumps just talking about it. So much of that opera is driving, brazen sound; then you go to that beauty. Not that these things aren’t factored into Baroque or Classical rep, because of course they are. But you hear the contrast more, which is something I find so delicious in contemporary music. It’s an evolution, right?
I may connect to modern works so directly simply because I speak English. I love words. Words are to me the most important aspect of all this. This is something I love in the song cycle by Seeger that I am doing in my recital, the way she sets the words. The Neruda songs as well.
ArtsATL: Let’s talk about the recital. What was your inspiration for the title and choice of repertory?
Beteag: That goes back to the question of why I sing. The easy, more palatable answer is that it is what I have always done. But the truer answer is that every once in a while, when I am singing, I feel like I can look God in the eye for a split second. The title of the recital, Awake My Soul, is an homage to [British folk/rock band] Mumford and Sons. I wanted to include pieces which light that spark within me, that sense of looking God in the eye, and that facilitate meditation on transcendence and, to steal a term from Rilke, the “heavy humanness” we all experience.
I could program a recital of only “beautiful” music, but I wanted to do things like the Seeger, or the Vaughan Williams, which force you to pay more attention and explore what it is to be human.
ArtsATL: Now that you are returning to Atlanta for your recital debut, is there anything you most want audiences to know about you?
Beteag: There is. It is important to me to center authenticity instead of just being palatable. In this profession, most of my gigs will be about playing someone else. So, in the moments when I can just be Gaby, I want to be wholly myself. I spent years apologizing for my bigness, bigness of voice, of body, and intensity. I don’t want to do that anymore.
I am very proud of this recital, and I am excited to be able to come home to Atlanta and sing it for people who have known me since I was a teenager and have seen me go through self-doubt. To be able to share what I have ascended to with them is thrilling — because these are the people who really matter.
::
Mark Thomas Ketterson is a Chicago-based arts critic and writer. He is the Chicago correspondent for Opera News, and has also written for Playbill, the Chicago Tribune and other publications.
