Opera New Jersey Inc.

The Victoria J. Mastrobuono Emerging Artist Program is a major component of ONJ’s ongoing efforts to support young singers. Selected via a competitive audition process in December, 25-30 singers are chosen from over 700 applicants each year. Studio artists are an integral component of the summer mainstage season. Participants in the program join the company during the summer season and undergo an intense seven-week performance/training period, performing in outreach concerts across the state, singing supportive and chorus roles in mainstage productions, covering principal roles, and participating in master classes and individual coachings led by the field’s most sough-after professionals. Outside of the summer season, program participants are engaged to sing in the company’s arts education programs, outreach concerts, and winter opera performances.

Opera New Jersey presents in-school programs during the academic year and youth camps during the summer. The company’s signature educational program, Interact with Classics, brings interactive adaptations of classic operas to the schools in New Jersey. This spring Opera New Jersey will bring an educational tour of Rossini’s The Magic Flute, Bizet’s The Pirates of Penzance, and Humperdinck’s Interact with Classics into a sequential opera education program for students over the course of three years. This grant will allow Opera New Jersey to bring two new additional education programs to students: Interact with Classics that introduces students to the art form in an engaging and fun way, and Opera Creation, which provides in-school instruction in libretto writing, music-writing, and dramatic arts, culminating in the creation of an original classroom opera.

Opera New Jerseyprovides outreach opera concerts, guest lectures, public master classes, pre-curtain talks, and informal community discussions. Outreach concerts include opera arias, song recital, and musical theatre repertoire, and engage the talents of Opera New Jersey’s principal singers and emerging artists. Speakers for outreach discussions and panel events include stage directors, conductors, and principal singers. Most recently, Opera New Jersey’s General Director, Richard Russell, has become a regular speaker for New Brunswick’s State Theatre Cinema & Opera’s Opera Screenings, presenting introductory remarks before each performance.