by Bailey Basham, Messenger Staff Writer

This year, select student musicians with the Sewanee Summer Music Festival (SSMF) will be able to add operatic training to their festival experience.

Laura Brooks Rice, voice teacher with the Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera and director of the Sewanee Opera Intensive, said through OperaFest Sewanee, students will be able to craft skills in areas such as vocal technique, languages, stagecraft and dramatic work.

“OperaFest Sewanee is bringing together 23 opera singers and four pianists for a month of intensive training and performing opportunities,” Brooks Rice said. “Sewanee is a very meaningful place for me and my family, and I am delighted to bring singing to the mountain. During the program, I will plan curriculum, work with the faculty to create a holistic and well-rounded training program, and I will be the primary voice teacher for all the singers.”

Rice added that the aim of the program is twofold — she and SSMF leadership hope to discover new talent through nationwide auditions and to bring artists together in Sewanee to work with some of the greatest operatic teachers in the world.

“Laura Brooks Rice is one of the finest vocal teachers in the world, and she lives right here in Sewanee. We are so happy to have these wonderful young singers on campus working with Laura and our outstanding vocal faculty. In the future we look forward to continued collaborations between our instrumental and vocal students and faculty, as well as commissions of new compositions for voice and instrumental groups,” said Executive and Artistic Director John Kilkenny. “This is truly an exciting time for the SSMF.”

In addition to Brooks Rice’s leadership, students at the festival will learn under faculty from the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Washington National Opera and the Atlanta Opera.

“They will provide our singers and pianists with musical coaching, dramatic classes and voice lessons that will arm them with information and skills needed as they enter professional auditions and performances,” Brooks Rice said.

This month-long intensive will culminate with performances in Aria Showcase concerts, chamber music concerts and public classes with experts from the opera industry. The students will also perform Much Ado About Opera, which will feature scenes from operatic settings of works by William Shakespeare, including “Romeo and Juliet,” “Othello,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Falstaff” and “Macbeth.”

“The singers will have been working with Emeritus faculty David Landon the entire four weeks of the program on elocution of Shakespearean text and diving deeper into character development with his guidance. Although most of the program will be sung, there will be some spoken Shakespeare to accent the flow of the program. It’s a unique opportunity for opera singers of this caliber to be able to collaborate with a great acting coach and Shakespeare expert that is David.”

Above all, Brooks Rice said the OperaFest programming will prepare each of its students to enter the opera industry and serve as a launching pad for many of the young artists’ careers.

“Training artists for a career in the operatic industry is a long and winding road—each individual’s path, training needs and artistry is unique to them. Programs like this provide artists with personalized training that meets them where they are and thus helps them to take the important next step in their careers,” she said.

The Sewanee Summer Music Festival will run through July 18. For more information about performances or to purchase tickets, visit <ssmf.sewanee.edu>.