Gabrielle Beteag

American mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Beteag (pronounced Bee-tag) brings a fresh joy and commanding warmth to repertoire spanning Baroque to contemporary works. Praised as a “showstopper” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Beteag’s recent performance in the Merola Grand Finale concert was “a virtuoso display of rhythmic precision and vocal exuberance.”

A recent graduate of the Adler Fellowship at San Francisco Opera, Gabrielle began the 2023-24 season appearing with the company as Stimme von Oben in Die Frau ohne Schatten an Image of Frida Kahlo in El último sueño de Frida y Diego, and the Teacher in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. She then traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, where she placed as a semifinalist in the 2023 Operalia World Opera Competition. Later this season, she sings Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the San Francisco Ballet.

Inspired by contemporary repertoire, Beteag counts her role creation of Iras in John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra during San Francisco Opera’s Centennial Season (2022-2023) a career highlight, in addition to performing in the West Coast premiere of Errolyn Wallen’s Roundel. During the same season, she also performed the role of Sœur Gertrude in Dialogues des Carmélites.

Other recent performances Mercédès in Carmen at The Atlanta Opera, where she was a Studio Player, Woman with Hat/Duchess in The Ghosts of Versailles at Chautauqua Opera, and Lady Billows in Albert Herring during her graduate studies at Georgia State University. Additionally, Beteag has covered the following roles: Octavia in Antony and Cleopatra, Mere Jeanne and Sœur Mathilde in Dialogues des Carmélites, Flora in La Traviata (San Francisco Opera); Mrs. Peachum in The Threepenny Opera, and Der Trommler in Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Atlanta Opera).

March 2020 marked a major career milestone, with Beteag winning The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition– just two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. During the shutdown, she created the Songbook Sundays series, through which she shared her renditions of Golden Era jazz standards on social media, accompanying herself on the ukulele. Gabrielle Beteag is currently a second-year Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera.

Photo by Lola Scott