Greta Risley

Greta Risley, born Margaret Percy Beery on July 14, 1866, in Wilmington, North Carolina, was an American mezzo-soprano who performed in both grand and comic opera from the early 1890s through the early 1920s, including Broadway appearances between 1900 and 1907. She died on February 1, 1923, in Manhattan, of complications from breast cancer, and is buried at Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts.

Risley was the second child of Stephen Wallace Beery and Virginia Constance Risley Beery. The family relocated to Houston, Texas, before 1870. Her father died in 1872, and two years later her mother married Robert Avery, a prominent attorney with standing in military and professional circles. The family lived in Nyack, New York, before moving to Brooklyn in 1882. Music ran throughout her extended family: her mother and three aunts — Cornelia, Eulalia, and Dora Risley — performed together as the Quartet Sisters, and her uncle Octavius Risley helped establish the choir at Christ Episcopal Church in Houston and also appeared in comic operas. Her aunt Eulalia Risley was a recognized mezzo-soprano whose career included performances in both the United States and Europe. Risley received her formal musical training at the National Conservatory of Music in New York, studying under Victor Capoul, and adopted her mother's maiden name for the stage.

Her professional debut came in June 1891 with Gustav Heinrich's New American Opera Company, when she sang Marguerite in Faust at the Grand Opera House in Philadelphia. That same engagement included the roles of Jemmy in William Tell, Venus in Tannhäuser, and Inez in Il trovatore. In October 1891 she joined the Minnie Hauk Opera Company for one season, taking the role of Lola in Cavalleria rusticana, and subsequently sang with the Emma Juch Opera Company. On March 4, 1892, Risley made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Mercédès in Carmen, returning to that house as Frasquita in Carmen on January 25 and February 3, 1894. Between those Metropolitan engagements she sang again with Heinrich's English/Italian Grand Opera Company and the New American Opera Company, reprising Siebel in Faust, Venus in Tannhäuser, and Inez in Il trovatore.

Performing with the Bostonians, Risley sang Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood, where she met Louis F. Casavant, who was also in the cast. In 1895 she appeared with the National Grand Opera under Gustave Hinrich in Philadelphia, and in December 1895 and January 1896 she sang in The Sparrow, a comic opera by Otto Eick. Her facility with languages was demonstrated during a single week in February 1896, when she sang three roles for the National Grand Opera in Pittsburgh: Jemmy in William Tell in French, Lisa in La Sonnambula in Italian, and Siebel in Faust in French. On March 19, 1896, she married Casavant in Washington, D.C., and that same month both joined the Frank Daniels Comic Opera Company, touring in The Wizard of the Nile through 1896 and 1897, with Risley in the role of Simoona.

Risley subsequently joined Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company, touring with them through the 1899 and 1900 seasons in a repertoire spanning grand and comic opera. Her roles during this period included Amneris in Aida, Carmen in Carmen, Galatea in Pygmalion and Galatea, and Sally Peachum in Sweet Anne Page, the latter of which became one of her Broadway credits. In September 1901 she took on the role of Queen Lili in King Dodo, another Broadway credit, touring the production across the United States until the end of the spring 1903 season. Following a summer break, the company mounted Florodora, with Risley as Dolores, and that production ran through the spring of 1905. The company then presented Woodland, in which she played Lady Peacock, touring through the spring of 1906.

Late in 1906 and into the winter of 1907, Risley sang with the Opera Comique Company in The Rose of the Alhambra, her third Broadway credit, performing the dual roles of Elizabetta and the Spirit of Zorahayda. In May 1907 she sang Katisha in several performances of The Mikado in Baltimore. In 1908 she joined the Aborn English Grand Opera Company, performing in Fra Diavolo and The Wizard of the Nile, among other productions, in roles that included the Gypsy Queen in The Bohemian Girl, Amneris in Aida, Siebel in Faust, Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood, Lady Constance in The Geisha, and Nancy in Martha. She remained with the Aborn company through 1911.

Her stepfather, Brevet Major-General Robert Avery, died in 1912, and Risley spent the following year caring for her mother, Virginia Risley Avery, who died on October 27, 1913. In 1915, Risley joined the cast of The Chocolate Soldier at the Shubert Theater in New York City. Beginning in the spring of 1919 and continuing through the winter of 1920, she sang Gilbert and Sullivan operettas with the Commonwealth Opera Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, taking the roles of Katisha in The Mikado, Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore, and the Duchess of Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers. She performed the same roles with the Gallo English Opera Company in New York City and toured with Fortune Gallo's San Carlo Opera Company across the United States and Canada. In 1921 she toured again with the New Bostonians, singing Aurelia in The Chocolate Soldier and Katisha in The Mikado.

Throughout their marriage, Risley and Casavant frequently appeared in the same productions, and the couple had no children. They maintained a New York address — at times in Brooklyn, at times in Manhattan — and built a summer home called Hilltop Cottage in the Oklahoma area of Martha's Vineyard, near the Innisfail Hotel, a retreat frequented by theater performers. Risley was an active member of the Martha's Vineyard Sea Coast Defense Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and her personal interests included sailing, walking, and golf.