Rachel Balbi is a soprano from Long Island, New York, who is completing her Master of Music in Performance (Voice) with a classical concentration at Shenandoah Conservatory. At Shenandoah, she is in the studio of Dr. Byron Jones and serves as the opera/voice department graduate assistant. In this production, she is fulfilling the role of Helena. You can see her perform again this semester as Madame Lidoine in selections of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites with the opera studio class on May 3rd at 1 p.m. in Goodson Chapel – Recital HAll. In addition to opera performance and solo work, Rachel also loves to sing in choirs. Last fall, she performed with the conservatory’s chamber choir in Native American Inspirations at the 2022 Venice Biennale. This spring, she was the soprano soloist in the choir’s performance of Jamie Powe’s The Gun Mass. In her spare time this semester, she also music directed a Mozart scenes program with Shenandoah’s OPERAtunity cohort. Rachel is grateful for her friends and family who have supported her and kept her sane throughout her time at Shenandoah.