Welsh open opera school

As part of its season announcement yesterday, Welsh National Opera said it was starting a school for opera, in conjunction with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

The idea it to enable emerging artists to train with outstanding guest singers and to train future conductors, directors, repetiteurs, stage managers and designers.

WNO’s artistic director David Pountney presented the school as part of a broad strategy for operating under limited means: ‘This all adds up to what I call – with perhaps some chutzpah – survival with brilliance. In a financially challenging climate we will survive, but survive brilliantly, and share that brilliance with our audiences. We recognise that culture is not everything in life, but assert that a life without culture is as nothing.’