Gregory Stapp
Encyclopedia
Gregory Stapp is an American bass
who has performed actively in concerts and opera
s internationally for more than 35 years. He has had a particularly fruitful partnership with the San Francisco Opera
, portraying more than 30 roles with the company since 1980. He has also worked actively as a private voice teacher and as a teacher of master classes
at a number of universities. He is the current Second Vice President of the American Guild of Musical Artists
.
in Denver. He earned a Bachelor of Music
from Loretto Heights College in 1976 where was a pupil of George Lynn
, the former music director of Westminster Choir College
. He pursued further studies in opera at the Academy of Vocal Arts
in Philadelphia from 1976-1980. He studied with Dorothy DiScala at the school and earned an Artist’s Diploma in 1980. In the summer of 1979 he pursued graduate work at the Jacobs School of Music
at Indiana University
where he was a student of longtime Metropolitan Opera
star Margaret Harshaw
and also worked as a Graduate Assistant in voice. He also studied singing with Janet Parlova, Jerome Hines
and Judith Natalucci.
in the United States premiere of Franz Schubert
's Fierrabras
at the Walnut Street Theatre
on May 11, 1980. He was also active with professional musical organizations in Philadelphia. He made his first appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra
in July 1978 as Il Tio Sarvaor in Manuel de Falla
's La vida breve
with Enriqueta Tarrés as Salud and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
conducting. That summer, he made his concert debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia
; and that November, he made his OCP stage debut as Il conte di Ceprano in Giuseppe Verdi
's Rigoletto
with Sherrill Milnes
in the title role, June Anderson
as Gilda, and conductor Gerhard Samuel.
In fall 1980 Stapp joined the San Francisco Opera's San Francisco/Affiliate Artists-Opera Program, making his stage debut with the company as the Second Armored Man in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's The Magic Flute
. After a series of smaller roles with the company, he portrayed his first larger role with the SFO, Raimondo in Gaetano Donizetti
's Lucia di Lammermoor
in November 1981. He continued to perform periodically with the company up through 2005, appearing in such parts as Achillas in Giulio Cesare
, Brander in La Damnation de Faust, Dansker in Billy Budd
, Friar Lawrence in Roméo et Juliette
, Lodovico in Otello
, the Parson in The Cunning Little Vixen
, Pluto in Il ballo delle ingrate
, and the Priest in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
among others. Fifteen of his performances with the SFO were broadcast nationally on NPR
.
Stapp has also sung roles with more than 60 other opera companies in the United States. In June 1983 he performed the role of Totor in the world premiere of Frederick Delius
's Margot la Rouge at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He made his debut at the New York City Opera
in November 1983 as Nourabad in Georges Bizet
's Les pêcheurs de perles
with Jon Garrison
as Nadir. He later returned to the NYCO to portray Sarastro in The Magic Flute in 1987, a performance which was broadcast nationally on PBS's Great Performances
. On November 15, 1986 he performed the role of Emperor Altoum in the United States premiere of Ferruccio Busoni
's Turandot
at the Connecticut Grand Opera with Patricia Craig
in the title role. In 1993 he portrayed John MacKay in the world premiere of Bern Herbolsheimer
's Mark me Twain at the Nevada Opera.
Stapp remains active as a performer and has a private voice studio in San Francisco with his wife accompanist/vocal coach Marcie Stapp.
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
who has performed actively in concerts and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s internationally for more than 35 years. He has had a particularly fruitful partnership with the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
, portraying more than 30 roles with the company since 1980. He has also worked actively as a private voice teacher and as a teacher of master classes
Master class
A master class is a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline—usually music, but also painting, drama, or any of the arts....
at a number of universities. He is the current Second Vice President of the American Guild of Musical Artists
American Guild of Musical Artists
The American Guild of Musical Artists, AFL-CIO is the American labor union that represents 8,000 current and retired opera singers, ballet and other dancers, opera Directors, backstage production personnel at opera and dance companies, and figure skaters.-Jurisdiction:According to its website it...
.
Early life and education
Born and raised in Colorado, Stapp attended Doull Elementary School, Kunsmiller Junior High School, and Cherry Creek High SchoolCherry Creek High School
Cherry Creek High School is the oldest of six high schools in the Cherry Creek School District in suburban Denver, Colorado. It is one of the largest high schools in the Denver metro area, with an campus and more than 3,700 students. Cherry Creek High School has been designated a Blue Ribbon...
in Denver. He earned a Bachelor of Music
Bachelor of Music
Bachelor of Music is an academic degree awarded by a college, university, or conservatory upon completion of program of study in music. In the United States, it is a professional degree; the majority of work consists of prescribed music courses and study in applied music, usually requiring a...
from Loretto Heights College in 1976 where was a pupil of George Lynn
George Lynn
George Lynn was an American composer, conductor, pianist, organist, singer, and music educator. A longtime member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, his compositional output encompasses more than 200 orchestral and choral pieces; many of which have been performed by...
, the former music director of Westminster Choir College
Westminster Choir College
Westminster Choir College is a residential college of music, part of Rider University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.Westminster Choir College educates men and women at the undergraduate and graduate levels for musical careers in music education, voice performance, piano...
. He pursued further studies in opera at the Academy of Vocal Arts
Academy of Vocal Arts
The Academy of Vocal Arts is a school dedicated to providing free higher education to aspiring opera singers. The school was founded in 1934 by Helen Corning Warden and is located at 1920 Spruce Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-History:...
in Philadelphia from 1976-1980. He studied with Dorothy DiScala at the school and earned an Artist’s Diploma in 1980. In the summer of 1979 he pursued graduate work at the Jacobs School of Music
Jacobs School of Music
The Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music...
at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
where he was a student of longtime Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
star Margaret Harshaw
Margaret Harshaw
Margaret Harshaw was an American opera singer and voice teacher who sang for 22 consecutive seasons at the Metropolitan Opera from November 1942 to March 1964. She began her career as a mezzo-soprano in the early 1930s but then began performing roles from the soprano repertoire in 1951...
and also worked as a Graduate Assistant in voice. He also studied singing with Janet Parlova, Jerome Hines
Jerome Hines
The American Jerome A. Hines was a basso opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1987...
and Judith Natalucci.
Career
While at the AVA, Stapp appeared in 15 student opera productions, including portraying the part of CharlemagneCharlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
in the United States premiere of Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Fierrabras
Fierrabras (opera)
Fierrabras is a three-act opera written by the composer Franz Schubert in 1823, to a libretto by Josef Kupelwieser, the general manager of the Theater am Kärntnertor...
at the Walnut Street Theatre
Walnut Street Theatre
The Walnut Street Theatre , located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 825 Walnut Street, is the oldest continuously operating theatre in the English-speaking world and the oldest in the United States...
on May 11, 1980. He was also active with professional musical organizations in Philadelphia. He made his first appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
in July 1978 as Il Tio Sarvaor in Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
's La vida breve
La vida breve
La vida breve is an opera in two acts and four scenes by Manuel de Falla to an original Spanish libretto by Carlos Fernández-Shaw...
with Enriqueta Tarrés as Salud and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is a Spanish conductor and composer.Frühbeck studied violin, piano, and composition at the conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid...
conducting. That summer, he made his concert debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
; and that November, he made his OCP stage debut as Il conte di Ceprano in Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
with Sherrill Milnes
Sherrill Milnes
Sherrill Milnes is an American operatic baritone most famous for his Verdi roles. From 1965 until 1997 he was associated with the Metropolitan Opera....
in the title role, June Anderson
June Anderson
June Anderson is a Grammy Award-winning American coloratura soprano. Originally known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, she was the first non-Italian ever to win the prestigious Bellini d'Oro prize...
as Gilda, and conductor Gerhard Samuel.
In fall 1980 Stapp joined the San Francisco Opera's San Francisco/Affiliate Artists-Opera Program, making his stage debut with the company as the Second Armored Man in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
. After a series of smaller roles with the company, he portrayed his first larger role with the SFO, Raimondo in Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
in November 1981. He continued to perform periodically with the company up through 2005, appearing in such parts as Achillas in Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare in Egitto , commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724...
, Brander in La Damnation de Faust, Dansker in Billy Budd
Billy Budd
Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...
, Friar Lawrence in Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
, Lodovico in Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
, the Parson in The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...
, Pluto in Il ballo delle ingrate
Il ballo delle ingrate
Il ballo delle ingrate is a semi-dramatic ballet by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi with words by Ottavio Rinuccini. It was first performed in Mantua on Wednesday 4 June, 1608 as part of the wedding celebrations for Francesco Gonzaga and Margaret of Savoy...
, and the Priest in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is an opera in four acts by Dmitri Shostakovich, his Op.29. The libretto was written by Alexander Preis and the composer, and is based on the story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is sometimes referred to informally as Lady Macbeth...
among others. Fifteen of his performances with the SFO were broadcast nationally on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
.
Stapp has also sung roles with more than 60 other opera companies in the United States. In June 1983 he performed the role of Totor in the world premiere of Frederick Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
's Margot la Rouge at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He made his debut at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
in November 1983 as Nourabad in Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's Les pêcheurs de perles
Les pêcheurs de perles
Les pêcheurs de perles is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run...
with Jon Garrison
Jon Garrison
Jon Garrison is a successful American operatic tenor who has been performing in locations around the world since 1965. He first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in 1974, in a secondary role in the company premiere of Death in Venice, which featured Sir Peter Pears...
as Nadir. He later returned to the NYCO to portray Sarastro in The Magic Flute in 1987, a performance which was broadcast nationally on PBS's Great Performances
Great Performances
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...
. On November 15, 1986 he performed the role of Emperor Altoum in the United States premiere of Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
's Turandot
Turandot (Busoni)
Turandot is a 1917 opera with spoken dialogue and in two acts by Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni prepared his own libretto, in German, based on the play by Count Carlo Gozzi. The music for Busoni's opera is based on incidental music, and the associated Turandot Suite , which Busoni had written in 1905...
at the Connecticut Grand Opera with Patricia Craig
Patricia Craig
Patricia Craig is an American operatic soprano and voice teacher.-Operatic career:Born Patricia Duncklee in Long Island, New York, she studied music education at Ithaca College, graduating in 1965. Craig gained her first critical vocal acclaim as a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council...
in the title role. In 1993 he portrayed John MacKay in the world premiere of Bern Herbolsheimer
Bern Herbolsheimer
-Biography:Bern Herbolsheimer has received recognition throughout the United States and Europe for over 500 works ranging from ballet to symphonic, operatic, chamber and choral works. His numerous major commissions and premieres have included ballets for the Frankfurt Ballet, the Atlanta Ballet,...
's Mark me Twain at the Nevada Opera.
Stapp remains active as a performer and has a private voice studio in San Francisco with his wife accompanist/vocal coach Marcie Stapp.