Karla Goettel' s soprano voice serves her in a career of extraordinary range. She has performed with the Omaha, Mankato, Dubuque, Waterloo/Cedar Falls, Clinton, Wartburg and Northwest Iowa Symphonies as well as the Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale (four times) and the Waterloo Metropolitan Chorale in repertoire ranging from Bach, Mozart and Haydn to Gershwin, Cole Porter and Andrew Lloyd Webber. She has performed many times with the Cedar Rapids Symphony/Orchestra Iowa in their Classical, Chamber and Pops series, including a Holiday Pops concert that was broadcast on Iowa Public Television. Karla was the soprano soloist with Orchestra Iowa for Beethoven's 9th Symphony at Brucemorchesta, and she held a 12-week contract with Old Creamery Theatre (an Equity company) where she performed 42 performances of the musical, "Tintypes". She has been a frequent guest with Liar's Theatre of Marion, Iowa where she starred in "lee, The Opera" and Sondheim's "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow." Many of these performances have been broadcast on radio and television. As Maria in "The Sound of Music" she performed for over 10,000 people in sold-out performances. Karla has sung two principal roles with the Cedar Rapids Opera, The Mother in "Amahl and the Night Visitors'' and Adele in "Die Fledermaus."
Her solo recitals have taken her across the United States, including Boulder and Denver, Colorado, Ft. Smith, Arkansas, (twice), a four-city tour·through Ohio, Norfolk, Virginia Wheeling, West Virginia and a four-city concert tour on the east coast of Florida, which culminated in a performance at the famed Flagler Museum in Palm Beach with Maestro Paul Csonka, conductor of the Palm Beach Opera, at the piano. She was selected by the Iowa Arts Council to perform a half-hour concert for the National Governors Gala at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines in 2005.
Karla has coached with Metropolitan conductors Richard Woitach and Jeffrey Tate, Richard Boldrey of the Chicago Lyric Opera and Robert Larsen from Des Moines Metro Opera. Her honors include selection as one of thirteen finalists in the National Opera Association Auditions held in Dallas, Texas and a career development grant from the Young Artist Development Fund in Cleveland, Ohio. She has twice been named an Outstanding Young Woman of America. Karla has toured extensively for the Iowa Arts Council, performing and teaching in over 65 Iowa communities. Her CD, "Just Great Songs," produced in part with a grant from the IAC and the National Endowment for the Arts, received rave reviews. In addition to a performance career, Karla has a private voice studio. Her students have been consistent winners in competitions at the state, regional and national level and are performing on Broadway and in opera all over the world, as well as teaching from the elementary level to the university and graduate level. In 2021 she performed the role of Anna Howard Shaw in the Equity world premiere of The Suffragist.