Joan Boyd Wall (born in Baton Rouge) is a retired

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operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and author on the art of singing. In 1957 she was a finalist in the

Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition (formerly the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions) is an annual singing competition sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera. Established in 1954, its purpose is to discover, assist ...

. She was a principal performer at the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...

, and the

Deutsche Oper Berlin The Deutsche Oper Berlin is a German opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house (after Munich's) and also home to the Berlin State Ballet. Since 2004, the D ...

, and in

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, Fort Worth and other US cities. Wall was the coordinator of vocal studies at

Texas Woman's University Texas Woman's University (TWU) is a public coeducational university in Denton, Texas, with two health science center-focused campuses in Dallas and Houston. While TWU has been fully co-educational since 1994, it is the largest state-supported u ...

for many years. She was appointed Professor Emerita in 2008 following a teaching career of 44 years at TWU. Wall is the author of ''International Phonetic Alphabet for Singers: A manual for English and foreign language diction'' (Pst. Incorporated, 1989); a text which is widely used as a university/music conservatory textbook in the United States. She has co-authored several books on singing, including ''Anyone Can Sing: How to become the singer you always wanted'' (Doubleday, 1978), ''Diction for Singers, Mastering the Fundamentals: Excellence in Singing: Multilevel Learning, Multilevel Teaching'' (Caldwell Publishing Company, 2001), and ''Managing Vocal Health: Teaching and learning vocal health'' (Caldwell Publishing, 2001).

Roles

Joan Wall has performed many roles including: *Preziosilla in '' La forza del destino'' *Carmen in '' Carmen'' *Dorabella in '' Così fan tutte'' *Suzuki in ''

Madame Butterfly ''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story " Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Lut ...

'' *Cherubino in '' The Marriage of Figaro'' *Augusta in ''

The Ballad of Baby Doe ''The Ballad of Baby Doe'' is an opera by the American composer Douglas Moore that uses an English-language libretto by John Latouche. It is Moore's most famous opera and one of the few American operas to be in the standard repertory. Especially ...

'' *Nicklaus in ''

The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died i ...

'' *Fyodor in Boris Godunov

Academic education

* 1956 – Bachelor of Music,

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

Family

* Joan Wall was married to Mark Wall from 1955 to 1972. She was married to Ernest Lee Ludwick from 1974 until 2015. Ludwick was a photo-reconnaissance pilot for the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he worked as a commercial artist and art director for Texlite Industries. Her father, a Methodist minister, died when she was nine. Her mother, who sang in the church choir and was the first violinist to graduate from

, remarried Julian C. Hays, a business man.''She'll Sing in Berlin'', Dixie Roto Magazine (Sunday insert of ''

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''), cover story & pg 6, Oct 15, 1961

References

General references *Fite, Tom
"Mezzo Draws Acclaim In Victoria Concert"
''The Victoria Advocate'', 26 March 1968, p. 1 *

Performance record: Wall, Joan (Mezzo Soprano)
on the MetOpera Database *Sandved, Kjell Bloch, "Wall, Joan", ''The world of music'', Volume 4, Abradale Press, 1963, p. 1457 *Texas Woman's University
Joan Wall Biography
Inline citations

External links

Works by Joan Wall
on

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List of performances
at

The Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

(MetOperaFamily.org archives) {{DEFAULTSORT:Wall, Joan Living people American opera singers Operatic mezzo-sopranos Winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Texas Woman's University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) People from Baton Rouge, Louisiana Louisiana State University alumni