Imagine this: you’re a young singer, recently armed with a diploma that attests to the time and energy you’ve spent over the last six years. That piece of paper represents hours of practice time, language coachings, stage time at your university, scholarly papers submitted and countless tests taken and passed.
Now what?
How do you get from graduate school to a performing career? The gulf can seem too wide to broach, and there are so many questions that accompany the transition.
- I was the best singer at my school. How do I stack up nationally?
- Am I singing the right repertoire?
- No one in my family has ever freelanced: how do I pay rent or feed myself without a weekly paycheck?
- At school, they taught me the whole role over the course of the semester. I’ve heard that’s not the case professionally, but don’t know how “prepared” is prepared enough.
The Wolf Trap Opera Studio was founded in 2007 to address those very questions.
On Monday, 15 singers from the strongest music programs in the nation arrived at Wolf Trap. They’ll be performing small roles, covering mainstage casts, and working with WTO’s music staff and directing fellows to prepare for Studio Spotlight and industry auditions. Perhaps more importantly, they’ll have strong resources and role models in the Filene Artists who are just a few years older but have a wider breadth of experiences to share. (We have 5 Filene Artists this summer who we first got to know during their Studio residencies; that information transfer between tiers is legit!)
Morgan Brophy is the new Director of the Studio Artist program, and judging from the laughter that has been erupting from her office during intake meetings, she’s enjoying meeting this new class!
You can find more information on this year’s Studio Artists here.
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