A lot of opera companies have young artists programmes. They seem to vary a lot and so I’m curious to know more about them and what opera goers think about them. I’m no expert but I do have quite a lot of exposure to my local YAP; the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. I know a couple of the singers. I’ve seen many of them perform both in COC sponsored ventures and otherwise. I’ve seen many graduates of the programme perform too and I’ve been enormously impressed. One of the things about the Ensemble Studio that I really like is that it provides lots of performance opportunities. I don’t really understand how one can grow in a performing art without performing. I’m not sure though that this emphasis on performance is universal with YAPs. The Met programme for instance seems to offer few performance opportunities (please disabuse if I am wrong!). Here in Toronto our young performers get frequent opportunities in the free lunchtime concert series at the Four Seasons Centre, they do an annual schools tour with works geared for kids, they do a special performance with full orchestra on the Four Seasons centre Stage of one of the COC productions that year and they, crucially, take on many of the lesser, and sometimes not so lesser, roles in the COC’s productions. For example in the two productions mounted so far this season three members of the Ensemble Studio sang in Robert Carsen’s production of Iphigenia in Tauris alongside Susan Graham, Russell Braun and Joseph Kaiser and the roles of Marullo, Countess Ceprano and two other roles in Rigoletto were sung by ES members not to mention that the Gilda in four performances was also an ES member. How does it work in your local company?