Cecelia Hall

Cecelia Hall (born 1985) is an American operatic mezzo-soprano. A native of North Carolina, Hall trained as a singer at DePaul University and the Juilliard School before joining the young artist programs at the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She made her European debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2014 and became a resident artist at Oper Frankfurt in 2016, a position she remains in as of 2024. She continues to perform as a guest artist in operas and concerts with other organizations internationally. She has performed leading roles in the mezzo-soprano repertoire including title roles, both women such as Purcell's Dido, Rossini's La Cenerentola, and Piazzolla's María de Buenos Aires, and men including Cavalli's Eliogabalo, Handel's Ariodante, Serse and Teseo, Mozart's Ascanio in Alba and Humperdinck's Hänsel. She portrayed Bizet's Carmen in the Austin Lyric Opera in 2024.

Early life, education, and beginning career in the United States Hall was raised in rural North Carolina. She entered DePaul University's School of Music in Chicago in 2002, and made her opera debut while an undergraduate student at the Opera in the Ozarks portraying the title role in a production of Massenet's Cendrillon (English: Cinderella). she studied at the Aspen Music Festival and School where she portrayed the title character of a cross-dressing Greek Emperor in Francesco Cavalli's sexually charged Eliogabalo in 2007. She later returned to the Aspen Music Festival as a guest artist in 2015; portraying the title role in Piazzolla's tango opera María de Buenos Aires.

Hall next pursued graduate studies at the Juilliard School in New York City and achieved a master's degree in 2011. and the title role in Handel's Ariodante in 2009; Nero in the school's 2010 production of Monteverdi’s L'incoronazione di Poppea with Harry Bicket conducting; and Concepción in Ravel's L'heure espagnole in 2011.

On March 6, 2010, Hall made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall performing the "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen in a Young People's Concert. Later that month, she performed Johannes Brahms's Ophelia Lieder with Ensemble ACJW at Carnegie Hall. That same year, she was chosen to appear in a recital at Lincoln Center, with baritone John Brancy. She programmed excerpts from a song cycle by Alan Smith, Vignettes: Ellis Island on texts from oral histories of immigrants in the 1900s, followed by Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis and songs from Mahler's Rückert Lieder. She later performed this role again at the Fort Worth Opera (2013) the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (2016), and the Moscow Philharmonic (2017). a role which she recorded for Metropolitan Opera Live in HD. She continued her development as an opera singer at the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (LOC); joining that organization in 2011. the Second Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute (2011), the Voice of the High Priestess in Aida (2012), the third maid in Elektra by Richard Strauss (2012), and Annio in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito (2014). She was awarded LOC's Brian Dickie Outstanding Young Singer Award in 2012.

International career: 2014-present In 2014, Hall made her European debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Zaida in Rossini's Il turco in Italia. Later that year, she made an unplanned appearance at the Bavarian State Opera as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro; filling in at the last minute for another performer. The same year, she portrayed Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville in Toronto with the Canadian Opera Company. In 2015, she performed at the Santa Fe Opera as Ramiro in Mozart's La finta giardiniera; and returned to the Met as Javotte in Manon. She also performed the role of Dorabella that year in a semi-staged performance of Mozart's Così fan tutte with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

In 2016, Hall used her North Carolina accent to great effect as Ruby in Opera Philadelphia's production of Jennifer Higdon's Cold Mountain, and returned to Lincoln Center for performances as the alto soloist in Mozart's Great Mass in C minor at the Mostly Mozart Festival. In the summer of 2016, she appeared as the Geisha in Pietro Mascagni's rarely performed Iris at the Bard Music Festival. She also returned to her home state in 2016 to portray Rosina with the North Carolina Opera; a role she repeated in North Carolina with the Greensboro Opera in 2018.

Hall joined the roster of resident artists at Oper Frankfurt in the autumn of 2016; Other roles she has sung with the company include Fulvia in Gluck's Ezio (2016), the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte (2016, Zerlina (2017), Dorabella (2017 & 2022), Egla in Zelenka's Il Serpente di Bronzo (2018), Vlasta in Weinberg's The Passenger (2018), Hänsel in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel (2018-2019), Cherubino (2019, 2021), Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust (2019), Idamante in Idomeneo (2019), & 2022), Mercédès in Carmen (2021), and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther (2022-2023). She appeared as Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in 2017, in a production that Barrie Kosky had created in 2010.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oper Frankfurt staged Mozart's Figaro in a version adhering to social distancing in which Hall appeared as Marcellina alongside Liviu Holender and Adriana González as Count and Countess. A reviewer of this production described the complete ensemble as young, agile, and with flexible voices. That same year, she created the role of Sorrel in the world premiere of Lembit Beecher and Hannah Moscovitch’s war drama I Have No Stories to Tell You with Opera Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. That work was presented in a double bill with another opera about war, Claudio Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, in which Hall portrayed Clorinda. In 2018, she performed the role of Dinah in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra; a performance which was recorded and later broadcast on NPR station WEKU during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

In 2021, Hall portrayed Romeo in Opera Omaha's production of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and returned to Moscow for further performances with the Moscow Philharmonic; this time as Mozart's Second Lady.