Following a successful inaugural season in 2016-17, The Atlanta Opera announces the six members of the 2017-2018 Atlanta Opera Studio. The Studio includes three returning and three new artists, selected from 300 applicants and nearly 150 live auditions. Tomer Zvulun (General & Artistic Director), Lauren Bailey (Director of Artistic Administration), Rolando Salazar (Interim Chorus Master/Music Administrator), and Wade Thomas (Artistic Services & Studio Manager) conducted the auditions. This season, Studio members will take on roles in the Discoveries series and on the mainstage, and will be featured at Opera with an Edge on October 29.

The Atlanta Opera Studio provides talented emerging artists with valuable performance experience working alongside internationally acclaimed operatic professionals. The artists will participate in masterclasses and specialized instruction, enhancing and deepening their professional education through coaching in language, stage skills, and career development. Curriculum this year will also include workshops with the Center for Puppetry Arts and lessons with visiting voice faculty.

This season, artists in The Studio will appear in featured and supporting roles in mainstage and Discoveries series productions. The artists will perform throughout metro-Atlanta as part of the Studio Tour, which reaches more than 10,000 students annually. The Studio Tour production this season will be Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The Studio Tour will perform at schools from October 10 – 20, 2017; January 4 – 31, 2018; May 7 – 18, 2018. The artists will also perform in the Student Short production of The Daughter of the Regiment in February. The Student Short is a fully-staged, abbreviated version of the mainstage production, and also features The Atlanta Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Carefully selected highlights are threaded together, providing students the performance experience through the ArtsBridge program at Cobb Energy Centre.

“This crop of talented young artists marks the second season of our newly launched program. The inaugural year of the Studio program was a resounding success,” said Tomer Zvulun. “We are excited to see some of these talented artists return and welcome the new ones to The Atlanta Opera family."

The Studio program helped launch the career of tenor Santiago Ballerini, who performed this past season at The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Colon in Argentina, and Teatro Municipal in Brazil. Ballerini will return to Atlanta as Tonio in The Daughter of the Regiment this season. Brenna Corner, who directed the 2016-17 Studio Tour, will return as director of Carmen on the mainstage.

The artists of The Atlanta Opera Studio will perform at Opera with an Edge, the annual season preview concert, on Sunday, October 29 at 3pm at Cobb Energy Centre. The program will be approximately 75 minutes in length and feature bite-sized moments from upcoming mainstage productions of Carmen, The Flying Dutchman, The Daughter of the Regiment, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Tickets may be purchased at www.atlantaopera.org or 404-881-8885. Tickets are free for subscribers and $8 for non-subscribers.

First-year Atlanta Opera Studio artists:

Gina Perregrino, Mezzo Soprano from Wilmington, Delaware

Christopher Dunham, Baritone from Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Justin Stolz, Tenor from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Returning Atlanta Opera Studio artists:

Bryn Holdsworth, Soprano from New York, New York

Valerie Pool, Pianist and Vocal Coach from Marietta, Georgia

Brenna Corner, the Jerry & Dulcy Rosenberg Young Artist Stage Director, given in honor of Tomer Zvulun from Alberta, Canada