- Gregory Stapp
- bass
Bass Gregory Stapp has performed with scores of opera companies, symphonic orchestras and music festivals in America, as well as in Europe, Mexico Japan and China.
Featured as Sarastro on PBS’s Great Performances: LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER telecast of New York City Opera’s Die Zauberflöte, he was Ashby on RAI’s Italian telecast of Spoleto’s Festival dei due mondi’s La fanciulla del West, and has been heard on dozens of American radio broadcasts.
His thirty roles performed under the auspices of San Francisco Opera include Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Achillas in Julius Caesar, the Priest in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Lodovico in Otello, Brander in La Damnation de Faust, the Parson in The Cunning Little Vixen and Dansker in Billy Budd, as well as Pluto in Monteverdi’s Il ballo dell’ingrate and Friar Lawrence in Roméo & Juliette for SFO’s Spring Opera Theater.
Widely acclaimed for his spectacular interpretations of Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio, such diverse roles as Bluebeard in Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Nilakantha in Lakmé, Kecal in The Bartered Bride, Reverend Hale in The Crucible, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo, Fasolt in Das Rheingold, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Hunding in Die Walküre, the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha have also won him praise.
Stapp was invited by Gian Carlo Menotti to make his debut at the Edinburgh Festival as Mr. Kofner in The Consul, directed by the composer. He was Ramfis in Aïda for Guadalajara, Mexico, and sang in Die Zauberflöte, Rigoletto, La Bohème and Don Giovanni as well as in several concerts for Japan’s Sakai City Opera.
For Nevada Opera’s Silver Anniversary he created the role of John Mackay in the world premiere of Bern Herbolsheimer’s Mark Me Twain. His Emperor Altoum in Connecticut Grand Opera’s American stage premiere of Busoni’s Turandot and Fasolt in François Rochaix’s production of Der Ring Nibelungen for Seattle Opera drew wide attention to the American bass.
An accomplished recitalist, Stapp was showcased on Spoleto’s famed Concerti di Mezzogiorno series by festival-founder Gian Carlo Menotti. He has also appeared in concert with the Osaka Philharmoniker, San Francisco Symphony, Sacramento Symphony, Colorado Springs Symphony, Illinois Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra, among others.
Highly praised for his exceptional enunciation, musicianship, dramatic presence, comic timing and fabulously rich, deep bass voice, Stapp has received prestigious fellowships, prizes and awards as well as public and critical acclaim.
In recent seasons, in addition to many assignments for San Francisco Opera, he has sung Sparafucile for Cleveland Opera, Don Basilio for Tulsa Opera, the Commendatore for SFOpera Center/Yountville Lincoln Theater, Balthazar for Trinity Lyric Opera, the King for Sacramento Opera’s Aïda, and Osmin at the Lake George Opera Festival, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Lyric Opera Cleveland.
San Francisco’s Old First Concerts presented his extraordinarily successful Profondo Delights & Laments concert with pianist Robert Ashens and the Mondavi Center heard him in the Gloria from Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Jeffrey Thomas and the UC Davis Symphony and Chorus. Last year, he appeared at the Gallo Center in Modesto with San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows for a gala Townsend Opera concert, sang Sarastro and gave a master class for Notre Dame de Namur University, and traveled to China, where he performed with the Shandong Symphony and Kunming Symphony and gave master classes at the Music College of the Shandong Teachers University and at Kunming University’s Music Conservatory.
In 2010, Stapp joined the music faculty at Notre Dame de Namur University, where he sang Captain Vasquez in a fully-staged workshop premiere of Henry Mollicone's new work, Children of the Sun. His current NDNU responsibilities include teaching Conducting; the History of Musical Performance; Voice; Great Music in Cinema: Silents, Cartoons, Musicals, Comedies and Dramas; and, conducting The Marriage of Figaro.
Engagements include the world premiere of David Garner’s song cycle for bass voice: Opening Nights; Verdi’s Requiem with Germany’s Junge Kammerphilharmonie Freiburgand Standford University’s Summer Chorus; Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra; Zechariah in the world premiere of Peter Allen’s The Message of Gabriel; Friar Lawrence and Osmin for Townsend Opera; and, Bluebeard's Castle with the UC Davis Symphony.
Full Biography
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Top honors for pleasing the crowd as well as vocalism went to Gregory Stapp as Osmin…Stapp has the vocal wherewithal to execute this demanding role — both its tongue-twisting fury and its extremes of range — and did it all with an enchanting comic flair.
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle 1989
 Photograph by Stephen V. Stapp
The leading light was gifted young bass Gregory Stapp as Pasha Selim’s comic overseer Osmin, his voice and musical grasp right as could be.
Robert Commanday, San Francisco Chronicle 1991
Stapp’s six-foot-six-inch figure dominated the stage, as did his big voice, which is a true bass--a welcome change from the bass-baritones we hear so often these days passing as basses. Stapp showed himself capable of descending to the low D the role calls for, and it was a pleasure to hear him handle his low-lying music with ease and richness of tone. His singing of Osmin’s familiar aria in the final act stopped the show.
Trenton Times
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